Kénitra-Marrakech High-Speed Line: ONCF Launches Technical Audit of Structures

The National Office for Railways (ONCF) is undertaking a new project within the vast worksite of the Kénitra-Marrakech High-Speed Line (LGV). The national manager of rail transport has just launched a tender to recruit a firm that will carry out the technical audit of the structures built as part of this project.

Objective: to verify their technical and environmental compliance, from initiation through to final acceptance. Set at four years and budgeted at over 10 million dirhams (MDH), this service will take place in three phases.

Firstly, it will involve studying whether the project management systems (quality, costs, and deadlines), implemented by the project owner and its assistants as well as the various stakeholders, are compliant with the provisions set out by the reference frameworks.

Control of technical processes

On the list of stakeholders, one also finds the construction supervisors, design-build contractors, as well as the contractors, engineering firms, and suppliers.

The second mission will concern the technical process. The objective being to ensure that the structures completed are compliant with the contractual provisions and the rules of the art and standards in force. The service provider will also verify if these infrastructures have the required quality and are fit to fulfill the functions for which they were designed.

The environmental audit will conclude the works. It will allow the ONCF to evaluate the consideration of environmental measures and the social accompaniment actions of the project. And this, by basing itself on the regulations and the standard in the matter and the environmental requirements of the works. The bid opening is set for the 20th of next November.

Progress of the works

430 kilometres. That is the length of the future Kénitra-Marrakech High-Speed Line, whose construction works were launched last April 24th by His Majesty King Mohammed VI.

This structuring project is part of an ambitious programme mobilising a global investment of 96 billion dirhams (MMDH). This includes 53 MMDH for the construction of this high-speed railway line which will reduce the travel time to only 2 hours and 40 minutes between Tangier and Marrakech.

The infrastructure works include the implementation of a latest-generation signalling system, the construction of new high-speed and local stations, the construction of 600 km of electrified tracks, and the construction of nine maintenance centres and technicentres for the equipment.

These worksites are advancing at a sustained pace and are expected to extend until the end of 2027 in several phases.