Tunnel crews working for Orascom Construction have completed the first boring-machine breakthrough on Cairo Metro Line 4, digging between Fustat and Malek El Saleh stations with a 6.4-metre slurry machine on the 19-km first phase that will run under the Egyptian capital with 17 stations, 16 of them underground.
The milestone was reported on October 27 by The Tunnelling Journal. It closes the first stretch of excavation on Orascom’s CP402 contract, on the eastern section of the new line.
Line 4 Phase 1 is popularly known in Cairo as the Haram Street Metro, one of the projects that will reshape how western Cairo connects to the rest of the network.
Two identical machines built for Cairo’s ground
Orascom has deployed two identical slurry tunnel boring machines on the contract. Both were manufactured by China Railway Construction Heavy Industry, known as CRCHI.
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The machines cut a tunnel with an external diameter of 6.4 metres. Once the segmental lining is in place, the internal diameter will be approximately 5.8 metres.
According to Orascom, the machines were customised to handle the project’s complex geometric and geotechnical conditions along the route.
The second machine is ready to start the parallel tunnel
With the first drive complete, Orascom said the second machine is ready to begin excavating the parallel tunnel along the same alignment between the two stations.
The contract includes twin running tunnels as part of an approximately 5.4-km underground section. In total, about 8 km of tunnelling is planned across CP402.
Orascom’s 2025 integrated annual report puts each of the two tunnels at roughly 3.75 km, according to The Tunnelling Journal.
Five underground stations in one contract
CP402 is not only a tunnelling job. It covers civil engineering, tunnelling and mechanical, electrical and plumbing works for five underground stations, a turn-back facility and the twin running tunnels.
Construction started in the first quarter of 2024, and completion is scheduled for 2030. Orascom is also working with Mitsubishi in a consortium on the systems, track and depot package for the first phase.
UK tunnelling specialist Joseph Gallagher Ltd is advising Orascom on machine specifications, excavation methods, equipment and operating procedures, with its on-site team expected to grow to about 25 people.
Line 4 was already 65 percent built in September
The breakthrough follows a government inspection in September. Egypt’s National Authority for Tunnels, known as NAT, said then that overall progress on Line 4 Phase 1 had reached about 65 percent.
Civil works on the eastern section, where Orascom is digging, were around 46 percent complete at the time of that inspection.
In other words, the eastern stretch was running behind the line as a whole, which is why progress underground on CP402 carries weight for the overall schedule.
19 km linking western Cairo to the existing network
Phase 1 will extend about 19 km and include 17 stations: 16 underground and one at the surface. The route will connect western Cairo with the existing metro network.
Passengers will be able to change to Line 2 at Giza and to Line 1 at Malek El Saleh, the station at one end of the stretch that has just been excavated.
A plan to carry 14 million passengers a day by 2030
Line 4 is part of a much larger push. NAT plans to spend about 600 billion Egyptian pounds, roughly $10.7 billion, on subway and electric rail projects between 2026 and 2030, Al Manassa reported on October 25.
Under that blueprint, daily passenger volume would rise from 5 million to 14 million by 2030, and the operating fleet would grow from 230 trains to about 670.
Total metro and electric rail trackage would increase from 2,376 km today to 2,889 km. The 19-km first phase of Line 4 is among the projects slated for delivery in the next four years.
High-speed rail and freight join the same blueprint
At the core of the state portfolio is a 2,250-km high-speed electric rail network spread across four priority lines, according to the investment plan reviewed by Al Manassa.
For the first time, the plan also gives electric traction lines a freight role, with a target of hauling about 14 million tonnes of cargo a year by 2030, a segment that currently carries nothing.
Light rail is part of the push too. The first two LRT phases, covering 68 km, opened in July 2022 with $1.2 billion in financing from the Export-Import Bank of China, and phases 3 and 4 will add 35 km.
The bill behind the tunnels
The scale of spending is already large. The authority absorbed roughly 1.4 trillion pounds, about $25 billion, between 2014 and the end of 2025, and the new plan would lift the total to about 2 trillion by 2030.
The expansion comes with heavy borrowing. Al Manassa describes NAT as Egypt’s most heavily indebted economic authority, with budget projections showing loans above 275 billion pounds this year.
To keep current works solvent, the authority is finalising a 29 billion pound syndicated facility, about $520 million, from nine domestic banks. The transport ministry has also secured preliminary commitments for 1.5 billion euros in concessional financing from three international institutions.
The same plan includes the 38-km Cairo Metro Line 6, the 43.8-km West Nile Monorail to 6th of October City and the 21.7-km Alexandria Metro.
On the oldest part of the grid, the 44-km Line 1 is due for new signalling and train control systems, plus 55 new trainsets from France’s Alstom.
From Fustat to Malek El Saleh, one drive at a time
Big metro projects are measured in milestones like this one: a machine breaks through into a station, and a second machine then starts again beside it.
We have followed similar drives elsewhere, such as the boring machine that took 706 days to cross 7.5 km of the Alps.
Cairo’s version runs beneath a dense capital rather than a mountain. The project details are in The Tunnelling Journal’s report.
Would a new metro line under Haram Street change the way you travel around Cairo and Giza?
