NORWAY —Skanska has secured a NOK 1.6 billion contract, equivalent to approximately SEK 1.5 billion, from Norway’s Public Roads Administration, Statens Vegvesen, to upgrade the E16 Lærdal Tunnel. The award is scheduled to be recorded in Skanska’s Nordic order bookings for the third quarter of 2026.
The 24.5-kilometre Lærdal Tunnel is the world’s longest road tunnel and forms an important transport connection between eastern and western Norway. The upgrade will involve extensive rehabilitation and improvements to technical and safety systems, with the objective of supporting safer and more reliable operation of the route.
Construction is scheduled to start in November 2026 and is planned for completion in 2029. A significant operational requirement is that the tunnel will remain largely open to traffic throughout the works. This will require construction activities to be coordinated around ongoing road use, with planning and logistics adapted to maintain traffic flow.
The project has implications for road transport and freight movements using the corridor between Oslo and Bergen, as well as for regional connectivity in Norway. Upgrading an existing major tunnel rather than replacing the asset also highlights the continuing role of rehabilitation and safety-system modernization in maintaining critical transport infrastructure.
For Skanska, the award adds a major Norwegian infrastructure contract to its Nordic order pipeline. For Statens Vegvesen, the project provides a mechanism to address the tunnel’s rehabilitation and technical requirements while keeping a strategically important road connection substantially operational during construction.
Skanska is a Swedish construction and project development group with operations across the Nordic region, Europe and the United States. Statens Vegvesen is Norway’s national public roads authority, responsible for national road infrastructure and related transport functions.
