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| Impregilo to widen the Panama Canal Italian construction firm Impregilo said that the "Grupo Unido por el Canal" consortium – formed by Impregilo (with a 48% share), Sacyr Vallehermoso (Spain) and Somague (Portugal), Jan de Nul (Belgium) and Panama's Constructora Urbana (Cusa) – had been officially informed by the Panama Canal Authority that it has been awarded the tender to build a new system of locks under plans to widen the Canal. The consortium presented a bid of 3.22 billion dollars (including the provisional sum) with respect to the Canal Authority's 3.48 billion dollar target price, its maximum investment allocation. The technical proposal, the most important component of the bid for the purposes of evaluation, was awarded the best evaluation and best score by the Commission: on a total of 5,500 points, the Impregilo consortium obtained 4,088.5 points, compared with 3,973.5 for the C.A.N.A.L. consortium (Acs, Acciona, Fomento, Hochtief, ICA de Mexico) and 3,789.5 for the grouping formed by Bechtel, Taisei, Mitsubishi. The award recognises the technical quality and scientific excellence of the project as well as the reliability and organisational abilities of the Impregilo consortium. Work on the project, which will involve approximately 6000 workers is due for completion by the end of 2014, the centenary year of the opening of the Panama Canal. One of the largest and most important engineering works ever planned, the project envisages the construction of two new series of locks, one on the Atlantic the other on the Pacific Ocean side, to enable the Canal to handle increased levels of commercial traffic and respond to developments on the maritime shipping market, where builders are constructing larger container ships with greater TEU capacity, known as Post Panamax vessels, than the Canal is able to accommodate today. write your comments about the article :: © 2009 Construction News :: home page |