The Ingenieur Vol 57 January-March 2014 The Ingenieur Vol 57 January-March 2014 | Page 12

COVER FEATURE

INGENIEUR

Challenges in the
Construction of the

Pahang-Selangor Raw
Water Transfer Tunnel
By Dr Zullkefle Nordin
Project Director,
Pahang Selangor Raw Water Transfer,
Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water
The state of Selangor especially the Klang Valley, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya have
experienced rapid development over the years. The statistics for water demand for these locations
shows there was increase from 2440 million litres per day (MLD) in 1998 to 3809 MLD in 2008. This
trend of increasing water demand at 3.3% per annum is expected to continue in the foreseeable future.
The water demand for 2025 is projected to be about 6242 MLD. To meet the increasing water demand,
the Federal Government has decided to look for alternative water resources beyond Selangor. The
development of water resources requires long distance transfer and hence becomes more expensive
as most of the resources close to the demand centres have been fully developed. The Pahang-Selangor
Raw Water Transfer Project (PSRWT) was identified as the most viable option to meet water demand
for Selangor and Kuala Lumpur’s in the future.
Introduction
This project aims to relieve shortfalls in water
supply for daily life and industries of Kuala Lumpur
and Selangor State in the future (supplying
approximately 1890 MLD) of raw water from Pahang
State to Kuala Lumpur and the surrounding areas.
The project consists of four packages;
1. Raw Water Transfer Tunnel,
2. Kelau Dam,
3. Pump House and Intake Works, and
4. Raw Water Twin Pipelines.
Figure 1 shows the overall view of the project.
The consultant engineer was appointed in 2005
for the design work. This project was financed by
the Government of Japan (GOJ) through the Japan
International Co-operation Agency (JICA) and the
Government of Malaysia (GOM). The overall cost
of the project is budgeted to be RM3.93 billion
of which GOJ will finance 75% of the construction
costs. The procurement procedure used is the
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VOL 57 JANUARY-MARCH 2014
VOL 55 JUNE 2013

International Competitive Bidding procedure as
requested by JICA. The conditions of contract used
is the Federation Internationale Des IngenieursConseils 1987 (FIDIC 1987). The construction
works began in June 2009 and all the works (all
the four packages) will be completed by the May
30, 2014. Figure 1 shows the progress of each
individual package. As at the end of November
2013 the overall progress of PSRWT was 90.3%. In
this article, the author will concentrate only on the
challenges encountered during the construction of
the raw water transfer tunnel.
The Raw Water Transfer Tunnel
The tunnel is the seventh longest water tunnel in
the world and the longest in the Asian region. It
is 44.6km long with 5.2m diameter. It includes
three sections of 34.6km each excavated by
Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM), four sections each
with a length of 9.1km excavated by conventional
tunnelling methods (New Austrian Tunnelling