Incredible £1.7bn mega-project set to transform one of Europe’s richest nations

An ambitious European road project in one of the continent’s richest countries has seen engineers blast their way through rocky cliffs using state of the art machinery.

The Drotningsvik tunnel in Norway has excavated approximately 500m of a new 1.9km long tunnel using drill and blast techniques.

The project is part of the wider £1.7 billion Sotra Link project that will see the construction of a new 9.4km road between Kolltveit in Øygarden to Storavatnet on the west coast of Norway.

The new road network will pass through four tunnels totalling a combined length of 4.6km.

It is hoped that the project will provide the towns and villages it passes through with a new lease of life as it opens up economic opportunities and gives businesses easier access to to global markets.

The work started in 2023 and is scheduled to be completed by 2027, providing a significant infrastructure boost to one of the continent’s biggest suppliers of gas and oil.

Since the discovery of oil in the Norwegian part of the North Sea in the 1960s, Norway’s economy as boomed as the country helped to power the west’s thirst for the precious natural resource.

Since 1990, surplus revenues petroleum sector have been placed into the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, similar to the one held by Saudi Arabia and used to fund their economic activity across the globe.

As of 2024, the fund was believed to be worth nearly £1.6 trillion, equating to around £230,000 per citizen.

The Drotningsvik tunnel is funded by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration in a public investment project that other European nations can only dream of.

The finished project will consist of a four-lane bridge and tunnel system and will be approximately 900m long.