The Bulgarian company "Adval" JSC and the German Ed. Zьblin AG held the grand opening of the third largest tunnel in Germany, the "Blessberg" tunnel, on Thursday.

The ceremony was attended by the German Minister of Transport Dr. Peter Rahmsauer, the Prime Minister of Thuringia Christine Lieberknecht, the Chairman of the Board of the German Railways (Deutsche Bahn AG) Dr. Ruediger Grube, the transport minister of Thuringia Christian Carius, the SPD deputy Sabine Doht and the Regional Administrator of Sonneberg region -
Christine Zitzmann.

Representatives of the Bulgarian partner company "Adval" on the ceremony were the executive director Valenting Trashliev and the General Director of the German branch – Krum Trashliev.

Being 8314 meters long, the "Blessberg" tunnel is the longest of 22 railway tunnels, which make up the new high speed section of the German Railways "Deutsche Bahn", between the cities of Erfurt and Ebensfeld.

"Blessberg" is also the longest tunnel dug by the two companies involved in the project, "Adval" A.D. and Ed. Zьblin AG. The underground facility crosses the main massif of mount Thьringer Wald between the Goldisthal and Truckenthal villages and is part of the railway connection between Nurnberg and Erfurt.

As soon as the tunnel iscompleted and operational, "Blessberg" will be the third longest tunnel in
Germany, after Landrьckentunnel and Mьnderer.

The construction of the "Blessberg" tunnel costs more than EUR 200 M. "Blessberg" is the longest of a total of 27 tunnels on the 500-km-long express railway between Munich and Berlin, due to be fully finished by 2017. An integral part of the "Blessberg" tunnel construction was digging the tunnel Goldberg (1120 m) from December 2008 to August 2009. The total quantity of earth excavatedduring the construction of the two tunnels is more than 1,150,000.00 m3 and to
strengthen them have been used around 120,000 m3 concrete mold.

“Adval” JSC was founded in 1993. The company specializes predominantly in
tunnel construction and strengthening structures. “Adval” is the first company in Bulgaria to adopt and apply the New Austrian Tunneling Method. The company performs anchors, drilling and grouting works and sprayed concrete.

In partnership with other well-known European companies and also individually,“Adval” participates in tunnel construction work in Germany, Spain, Greece and Bulgaria. Since 2008, the company has been working as a main contractor in the metro construction in the city of Sofia. In just less than twenty years “Adval” has executed the construction of over 50km metro (subway), highway, railroad and
hydro technical tunnels.