In attendance were Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Maxime Verhagen, Deputy Prime Minister & Minister of Economic Affairs, Ahmed Aboutaleb, Mayor of Rotterdam, and Alain Bonnot, President of VINCI Construction Grands Projets. Two days of activities were organized for 900 guests, including tours of the site and presentations on various topics, including the Netherlands’ positioning in the gas supply market in Europe.
The event was also an opportunity to honour the construction companies that delivered this project on time and on budget. In addition, the consortium achieved a near-zero accident rate as a result of its and the client’s stated priority on safety.
Construction of the Gate terminal, undertaken by VINCI Construction Grands Projets and Entrepose Contracting, in consortium with Techint (Italy) and Sener (Spain), included construction of a production plant, two unloading piers for tankers, and three storage tanks with an annual capacity of 12,000 million cubic metres of liquefied natural gas (LNG) for network users.
As part of this contract, VINCI Construction Grands Projets and Entrepose Contracting designed and built the three LNG storage tanks, each 50 metres in height, 86 metres in diameter, and 180,000 cubic metres in capacity.
The project required excellent coordination among the various participating companies at each step of the design and construction process for a total of three and a half years.
On June 13, 2011, an unloading pier at the Gate terminal welcomed the structure’s first tanker ever. The tanker carried liquefied natural gas from storage tanks in Ras Laffan in Qatar, which were also built by VINCI Construction Grands Projets from 1995 to 2000 (3 storage tanks) and from 2004 to 2007 (1 storage tank).
The upgrade will restore the Mona and Hope plants’ initial capacities of 68,000 m³/day and 29,500 m³/day, respectively.
The treatment process for raw water intake at the head of the plants includes coagulation, flocculation, decantation, and filtration (rapid sand filters for Mona and slow sand filters for Hope).
Funding for the project is provided by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
Work is set to begin in November 2011 and will be completed in 18 months.
The “Túneles de Acceso Principales del Proyecto Nuevo Nivel de Mina El Teniente” covers drilling and blasting two 9 km tunnels, each with an average cross section of 65 sq. metres, together with two intermediate access tunnels totalling 6 km. The first of the main tunnels is for transporting personnel; the other is for the ore. The tunnels will enable a new mine level to be created in El Teniente, the world’s biggest underground copper mine.
El Teniente is located at an altitude of between 1,500 and 1,900 metres, 80 kilometres to the south of Santiago, in the Libertador General Bernardo O’Higgins region in the Andes.
The works, which are scheduled to start in October 2011, will take 40 months to complete.
VINCI Construction Grands Projets is a major player in underground works, as illustrated by its current contracts, which include the Hallandsås rail tunnels in Sweden, Liefkenshoek rail tunnel in Belgium and the Cairo metro in Egypt.
Soletanche Bachy is one of the world leaders in ground technologies and has been operating in Chile’s mining sector for many years.
From left to right: Roberto Morrison (Soletanche Bachy Chili), Lionel Galis (VINCI Construction Grands Projets), Jean-Louis Dupoirieux (VINCI Construction Grands Projets), Roberto Madrid (Codelco), Yves Chiffoleau (Soletanche Bachy France), Juan Carlos Caprile (Constructora Vinci Chile)
The €374 million design-build contract covers civil engineering works in the eight underground stations, a viaduct across the motorway linking Doha with the northern part of the country and preliminary works on an LRT depot and maintenance workshop. The work is expected to take 38 months to complete.
The award of this new phase of the works attests to the excellent work done by QDVC in the previous phases (earthworks design studies and execution, followed by civil engineering works in the cut-and-cover tunnels and ventilation shafts) of this modern project, in which the construction of a new city is starting with its public transport system (LRT).
The new city of Lusail is made up of 37 sq. kilometres of waterfront land master planned into 19 mixed-use districts. It will accommodate approximately 200,000 residents and as many daily workers and visitors.
The LRT will serve the entire city of Lusail and will in future interconnect with the regional transport network. The Lusail Light Rail Transit System has therefore been handed over to the newly formed Qatar railway authority, Qatar Railways Company.
The full Lusail LRT project features four lines covering a combined distance of 30 km, eight underground stations and 25 at-grade stations. It is being built in several design and construction phases. The design phase got under way in August 2007, followed by earthworks and excavations for cut-and-cover tunnel construction in March 2009, tunnel construction in March 2010 and preparation of underground station construction in June 2011. The next and final phase of the works will include rolling stock and systems. Handover of the turnkey project is set for 2016.
Approximately 300 km north of Sydney, the project will secure the dam against floodwaters in compliance with Australian regulatory requirements and increase storage capacity by over 2.8 million m3 (a 55% increase).
Eight labyrinth-type fusegates, each 2.6 metres in height and 4.4 metres in width, will be prefabricated in reinforced concrete, transported to the site, and installed on the modified spillway. This AUS$1.4-million (€1.3-million) project will be completed in one year.
This new contract is Hydroplus Australia Pty’s second this year and sixth since 2000.
Thanks to the combined use of fusegates and flapgates installed by Hydroplus, operators were able to control flood levels in optimal conditions and limit restored flow (downstream) to 1,600 m³/s even as the peak flow (upstream) reached rates up to 4,000 m³/s.
Fusegates demonstrated their stability under severe operating conditions. The fusegate-equipped spillway was able to evaluate discharge limits during initial flooding, increase routing capacity1 by more than 120,000,000 m³, limit downstream damage, and consistently increase production at the hydro-electric power-generation plant, which has a total capacity of 340 MW.
To date, the Urrá Dam is the only dam in Latin America equipped with fusegates. The benefits associated with this technology are sure to lead to future opportunities for Hydroplus in this part of the world.
Read the article: Hydroplus upgrades the Urrá Dam in Colombia with Fusegates.
¹Flood-protection mitigation
The second section of the A86 Duplex, covering the 5.5 kilometres between Vaucresson and Vélizy, was opened to traffic at 1 pm on the next day, Sunday 9 January 2011, six months ahead of the date provided for in the concession contract signed by Cofiroute* with the French government.
The A86 Duplex offers drivers substantial time savings under safe and pleasant driving conditions. It will now take less than 10 minutes to complete the 10 kilometres trip between Rueil-Malmaison (Hauts-de-Seine) and Vélizy (Yvelines), compared to over 45 minutes on average using surface roads. The first section of the A86 Duplex, opened to traffic on 1 July 2009, cut travel time between Rueil-Malmaison and Vaucresson to just five minutes. It is used by over 13,000 vehicles on average every day, with travel “peaks” of 15,000 vehicles/day.
Designed, built, financed and operated by Cofiroute, this new-generation urban tunnel forms the final, western, link of the A86 motorway, the second ring road in the Paris region after the inner ring road (boulevard périphérique). The tunnel, which primarily facilitates travel between La Défense and Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines / Vélizy, major economic hubs in the Paris Region, makes a major contribution to improving the mobility of residents.
The A86 Duplex, reserved for light vehicles, consists of two superimposed decks carrying traffic moving in opposite directions. This one-way system eliminates the risk of head-on collisions. Sophisticated monitoring equipment and systems enable rapid detection and handling of any incident.
Staff at the 24-hour Cofiroute operations centre at Reuil-Malmaison monitor the safety and comfort of users and can provide front-line emergency assistance in the event of an incident. Over 100 employees have received special training and carry out regular drills.
Thanks to its stringent safety features and controls, the first section of the A86 Duplex was named as “the safest tunnel in Europe” by the European Automobile Clubs and Touring Clubs in their 2010 tunnel assessment programme (EuroTAP) covering 26 road tunnels in 13 European countries.
The A86 Duplex was built by VINCI companies for Cofiroute, which will be operating it under concession until 2086. It represents an investment of €2.2 billion.
*Cofiroute (1,895 employees) operates a network in centre-west France (A10, A11, A28, A71, A81, A85 and the A86 Duplex). A private-sector company since its creation in 1970, Cofiroute’s shareholders are VINCI (83.33 %) and Colas (16.67 %). It also has operations in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany and records about 120 million transactions a year. Cofiroute’s inter-urban network is ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certified.
The contract, worth a total of €264 million, covers the design and construction of a two-level car park with around 2,000 spaces for Sheraton Hotel guests and the general public (financial and diplomatic district of West Bay). The car park will be fitted, with an electronic system to guide drivers to vacant spaces that will be a first in Qatar.
The works also include the construction of a maintenance and storage facility and a control room for the future Doha light rail transit system, an electrical sub-station 66 kV, two of 11 kV and a 73,000 m² landscaped park in front of the Sheraton Hotel (fountains, basins, kids playground areas, coffee shops and restaurants). Also included in the project is the construction of a cut-and-cover tunnel under Corniche Road that will connect the car park and the future Doha convention centre, currently under construction.
The work will last 34 months.
The €6.2 million contract covers: design, supply, installation, and start-up for 9 wastewater pumping stations; 18 km of pipeline network; 5 kilometres of teletransmission network; and supply of specialized maintenance equipment.
Work is set to begin in December 2010 and will be completed in March 2013.
With this new project, the water-management division of VINCI Construction Grands Projets (Hydraulique Internationale) has consolidated its presence in Vietnam following environmental protection projects in the cities of Hoi An, Vung Tau, and Ha Dong.
As a result of the upgrade, the Kantale plant, in northeastern Sri Lanka, will increase its daily drinking water treatment capacity from 36,500 m³ to 54,500 m³.
The contract valued at €10 million covers the rehabilitation and extension of the water treatment plant; the design and construction of two additional storage tanks of a capacity, respectively, of 1,350 and 1,600 m³; the design and installation of electromechanical technology for the plant’s two water intakes and the complete rehabilitation of the pumping station for water-distribution purposes.
The work will be carried out over an 18-month period.
The new project further confirms the expertise held by VINCI Construction Grands Projets in the area of hydraulic works at the international level. The Company’s previous achievements include a pumping station at Doha in Qatar, water sanitation works at Ouargla in Algeria, drinking water supply projects in Jamaica, and an environmental protection project in the city of Hoi An in Vietnam.
