Morocco-Spain tunnel project: Madrid launches seismotectonic studies

Monday 16th September 2024 11:58 PM

Section of the Strait of Gibraltar, through which the tunnel would pass. Credit: Secegsa

The Spanish Society for Studies for Fixed Communications across the Strait of Gibraltar SA (Secegsa) will carry out a seismotectonic research campaign to advance studies aimed at building a tunnel linking Spain to Morocco, according to a Spanish media Source.

To this end, Secegsa has launched a call for tenders for the rental, with an option to purchase, of four ocean bottom seismometers (OBS, Ocean Bottom Seismometer) for the Capitan de Navío Manuel Catalán Morollón campaign that will be developed by the Geophysics Section of the Royal Naval Observatory (ROA) for six months. The contract is valued at 487,872 euros, specifies EuropaSur.

In recent years, the Spanish government has reactivated the activity of the company responsible, together with its Moroccan counterpart, the National Society for the Study of the Strait of Gibraltar (SNED), for studying the connection between the two countries through a tunnel.

In 2021, Secegsa commissioned Ineco to provide technical assistance services to the Fixed Link project across the Strait of Gibraltar and its coordination with a budget of 665,985.96 euros. In addition, in 2022 a grant of 120,000 euros in 2023 granted and then increased to 750,000 euros in 2024 after several years without credit. These funds, from the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, must be used exclusively to finance the update of the primary preliminary design of the fixed link prepared in 2007. The total amount allocated to Secegsa amounts to 2.3 million euros between January 2022 and June 2026.

In 2023, within the framework of the 43rd meeting of the Spanish-Moroccan Joint Committee, a memorandum of understanding was signed which included as a commitment “to relaunch and update the fixed link project across the Strait of Gibraltar.” This committee asked Secegsa and SNED to present a new general strategy and a detailed work plan for the years 2023-2025.

In March 2024, the Spanish Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, informed the Ministers of Transport and Logistics, Mohammed Abdeljalil, and of Equipment and Water, Nizar Baraka, of Spain’s interest in the fixed link project across the Strait of Gibraltar, a matter of “strategic nature” which Puente urged to be addressed at an upcoming meeting of the Spanish-Moroccan Joint Committee.

Madrid specifies that the corporate purpose of Secegsa is limited to carrying out studies, never works, which are normally carried out jointly with SNED, both created in 1981. “Any construction carried out in the future” would involve a new bilateral agreement with Morocco, as provided for in the international agreements in force on this issue, he indicated in April 2023.

The route chosen after the studies carried out so far would be 42 kilometres long, between Punta Paloma, in Tarifa, and Punta Malabata, 11 kilometres west of Tangier. The choice is due to the fact that the maximum depth would be 300 metres – it is 900 in the shortest option, between Punta Canales and Punta Cires, where the construction of a tunnel is unfeasible – and the maximum gradient 3%. There would be two single-track tunnels of 7.9 metres in diameter, with a service gallery of 6 metres in diameter. The three tunnels would be connected by cross passages every 340 metres, 100 of which in the safety stop zone.