Kirkland's Overlake Oil Wins Big 'Bertha' Contract

Kirkland’s Overlake Oil Co. has won a contract for about $1 million to supply lubricants for the huge tunnel boring machine “Bertha” that will cut a two-mile tunnel under Seattle, reports the Puget Sound Business Journal.

It’s a big contract for the 66-year-old, 12-employee company, at 1021 8th Street in Kirkland.

“We are talking tens of thousands of gallons of lubricants,” Steve Steinle, an industrial lubricant consultant with Overlake, told the Journal.

The tunnel will replace the aging, earthquake-damaged Alaskan Way Viaduct in downtown Seattle at a cost of some $2 billion. Bertha is the world’s largest boring machine and will start work on the tunnel this summer.

See the Journal story by clicking here.