The two barges making up the barge pair for offshore transport and laying of prefabricated underwater tunnel sections, Barge Jin-An 1 and Barge Jin-An 2, which were funded and built by CCCC-FHEC, were successfully launched in Nantong on June 27, 2012, marking an important milestone for the construction of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge – building and completion of a barge pair for offshore transport and laying of prefabricated underwater tunnel sections, which is to be another piece of key equipment for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Project.

The barge pair will be mobilized to the island-tunnel project site for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge in the coming August.

The barge pair, equipped with a high precision positioning system to accurately position the underwater tunnel sections, consists of two barges, i.e., Barge Jin-An 1 and Barge Jin-An 2, for the offshore transport and laying of 33 large prefabricated underwater tunnel sections. The prefabricated tunnel sections are very large tunnel sections with a standard size of 180m × 37.95m × 11.4m and a dead weight of approximately 78000t.()