The biggest infrastructural scheme undertaken by the National Roads Authority (NRA)outside Dublin, the construction of the €372 million Shannon tunnel, is set to be awarded to a subsidiary of the US conglomerate Halliburton.
The NRA decided the Direct Route consortium, including Kellogg Brown & Root Ltd (KBR), was "the most economically advantageous tender" to complete the private-public partnership (PPP) project.
Construction on the scheme - it involves a €100 million, 900m tunnel under the Shannon - is due to start next spring.
As the construction subsidiary of Halliburton, KBR employs 64,000 people in 43 countries.
As part of the Direct Route consortium it will receive a portion of the estimated €456 million that will be generated in tolls from the tunnel over the first 30 years of its operation.
Motorists are to be charged €1.60 to access the tunnel, with truck drivers paying €5.46.
The other companies involved in the Direct Route consortium include Austrian company Strabag AG; John Sisk & Son (Holdings) Ltd; Lagan Holdings Ltd; and Roadbridge Ltd.
The Texas-based Halliburton conglomerate is the biggest private contractor for US forces in Iraq, and has received contracts worth some $18 billion for its work there.
US vice-president Dick Cheney was chief executive of Halliburton in the five years immediately prior to joining the Bush administration.
Mr Cheney earned $45 million during his tenure at the world's largest oil-and-gas-services company.
One of the many contracts that Halliburton has secured from the US government is the €37 million deal to build prison camps in Cuba's Guantanamo Bay for suspected terrorists.
KBR is also contracted by the US government to assess the costs of the clean-up and reconstruction of the Gulf coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
In relation to the Shannon tunnel, the NRA is to now proceed with discussions with Direct Route to appoint it as the provisional preferred tenderer.
An NRA statement said that "if such discussions prove successful, and Direct Route are appointed provisional preferred tender, that is likely to lead to an award of the contract for the project in spring 2006".
KBR also acts as the construction supervisor to the Dublin Port Tunnel; is part of the Direct Route consortium that has won the contract to construct the N8 Rathcormac-Fermoy bypass; and is also part of one of four pre-qualifying consortiums for the controversial M3 motorway.
The Limerick tunnel will be only the second under-river tunnel in Ireland after the Jack Lynch Tunnel in Cork.
The road will link all national routes converging on Limerick from Dublin, Tipperary, Cork, Kerry, Waterford, Ennis and Shannon airport.
It is expected to remove 40,000 vehicles per day from Limerick city.
A compulsory purchase order (CPO) for the scheme was confirmed in August 2004, and construction on the scheme will take four years. Sections of the scheme may be complete prior to the tunnel becoming operational.
