The Spanish government has entrusted state-owned engineering company Ineco with reassessing the feasibility and budgetary cost of the Morocco-Spain mega tunnel, according to the Iberian digital newspaper Vozpópuli.
Ineco has been commissioned to prepare the new preliminary for the colossal work before mid-2026. It has been tasked with re-evaluating a 2007 preliminary project for the undersea tunnel, initially created through a collaborative effort by Spanish Typsa, Moroccan Ingema, Swiss Lombardi, and Italian Geodata.
Their tasks involve “defining construction alternatives and their viability,” mentioned in the same source, in addition to “their corresponding safety study and an estimate of the budgetary cost for all the works, including those in the Moroccan side.”
Initial cost estimates for the undersea tunnel project range between 5 and 10 billion euros, reported Vozpópuli. Securing financing for such a large-scale infrastructure project will likely involve institutions from Europe and Africa.
The new study is expected to focus on integrating a hypothetical tunnel into the railway corridor of the European Transport Network, which would have the potential to secure European public financing.
While the shortest route between the two countries is 14 kilometers long, the challenge arises from the significant sea depth of approximately 1,000 meters along that particular route. For this reason, Ineco is currently exploring alternative routes that are twice as long but have a much shallower depth of less than 300 meters.
The current vision for the project involves a single tunnel, but there is potential for adding a parallel tunnel to facilitate the transportation of goods and passengers. As mentioned in the same source, the primary emphasis is on rail transport around the tunnel rather than using roads.
Vozpópuli noted that consultations have occurred with the United States Geological Survey in Europe and Herrenknecht, a German tunnel-building business.
