New developments for the Morocco-Spain tunnel

SECEGSA approved this contract worth around 500,000 euros to acquire these seismometers that can be positioned at depths of up to 6,000 meters. The seismotectonic studies in the Strait of Gibraltar should last 6 to 24 months. The TEKPAM Ingenieria company, based in Madrid, was the only one to submit a bid in this tender, and won the contract with a financial proposal of 486,420 euros, reports Vozpopuli.

This seismotectonic study in the strait comes ten years after the first one, carried out in 2014 and which had detected the risk of earthquakes greater than 4. The Spanish government decided to carry out this study after the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and SECEGSA on November 3, 2023 with a view to finalizing the ongoing Technical and Scientific Research Plan since 1989.

Meanwhile, the Spanish Executive has entrusted the public company Ineco with the updating of the preliminary project of the tunnel, carried out in 2007 by the Spaniard Typsa, the Moroccan Ingema, the Swiss Lombardi and the Italian Geodata. The document should be delivered by mid-2026 and would provide information on the cost of the project, estimated between 5 and 10 billion euros.

38.5 kilometers long, including 27.7 kilometers underwater, the tunnel under the strait is expected to connect Punta Paloma, near Tarifa, to Tangier in Morocco. According to SECEGSA, it "will promote the development of transport networks between Spain and Morocco and create an unprecedented space of cooperation between the European Union and the Maghreb".