Week of 1 August
1. A favourable notice (France)
In Neuilly-sur-Seine, in the Paris suburbs, BESIX France is building the new Ambroise Paré, Pierre Cherest, Hartmann clinic. We could almost write “has built” since delivery is only a matter of days away. The Security, Safety and Accessibility Commission recently visited the project and then gave a favourable notice for the opening of the hospital structure. Congratulations to all the BESIX France teams. This was a challenging project, particularly because of the small size of the site, its access, its dense urban environment, and the methods chosen to build it. Great work!
2. Marine works visible from space (Qatar)
In Ras Laffan, a major industrial hub in Qatar, our colleagues from MIC Construct are building four new berths for loading LPG. Each berth consists of an access road, a loading platform, and dolphins. These are all areas reclaimed from the sea, which can be seen on images taken by satellites orbiting the earth! A few weeks ago, our teams handed over a first construction area to Samsung for the berth 08. Each berth requires 700,000 to 900,000 tonnes of quarry run to be placed in the water, delivered to the site at a rate of 8,000 to 10,000 tonnes per day. This material is then covered with a two-metre layer of compacted fill to form the base for the buildings, pipes, and access road. The sides of the access roads are protected by larger rocks (armour), which varies in weight from 150 kilograms to 1 tonne per unit. Finally, precast concrete blocks are placed at the end of the access roads, in the sea, and will be used to build the loading platforms and the dolphins. These concrete blocks are precast on site, which presents multiple challenges, especially in terms of safety, as the area is surrounded by active natural gas refineries! Congratulations to our colleagues in Qatar on this first major milestone, which is an outstanding example of the Group's capabilities in complex marine works.
3. Kangaroo solemnly hops to the next level (Australia)
At the end of July, representatives of the Brisbane City Council, BESIX Group and BESIX Watpac (including Pierre Sironval, Jean-Pol Bouharmont, Mark Baker, and James Alley) participated in a solemn smoking ceremony in the City Botanic Gardens. This ceremony marked the start of major construction work on the 460-metre-long cable-stayed pedestrian Kangaroo Point Green Bridge. The bridge will be an iconic structure for the city, as evidenced by the mayor's announcement a few months ago of the possibility of renaming it the Olympic Bridge in honour of the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games. It was not the first time that a traditional ceremony has taken place on a BESIX Watpac construction site. These events are an important cultural recognition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and we are extremely proud that BESIX Watpac is a leading construction company in this way of promoting respect. Thanks, and congratulations. Now we look forward to following the progress of the construction!
4. The final stretch on the Vistula Spit (Poland)
The final construction work on the Vistula Spit shipping channel is underway. According to the Maritime Office in Gdynia, as of 26 July, the work was almost 98% complete. The official opening of the infrastructure is scheduled for 17 September. The maritime office said that almost everything is ready for the land part of the investment, where testing and technical acceptance are currently taking place. The southern and northern bridges, the lock, the harbour master's office building and part of the channel to the Vistula Lagoon have already been delivered. Our teams still have to carry out finishing work, install cameras, warning loudspeakers in the bridge areas and road lighting, carry out planting, and complete the tests and trials related to the rotation of the bridges and the movement of the lock. On the breakwaters, the final dredging works, and installation of the last prefabricated elements remain to be done. This is the final stretch.
And then this… One of the “10 must-watch tech companies”!
aug-e, the company created by BESIX, Proximus and i.Leco in 2021, is one of the “10 must-watch tech companies” in 2022. This is what Digital First magazine says in its latest edition. According to the magazine, the new value models that aug-e is developing for the energy market can contribute to making this market truly more sustainable. Digital First is a magazine specialising in new technologies, with offices in the US, UK, UAE, and India. Our partner Proximus recently provided a good illustration of the relevance of aug-e's expertise: the Belgian ICT leader has just announced the installation in Belgium of at least 15,000 charge points for electric cars by 2028. In its communication on this subject, Proximus insists on the synergies to be found with aug-e, particularly for balancing the energy capacity between different charge points according to price, location, or grid constraints. Kudos for the work that the aug-e teams do daily.
Want to know more about aug-e? Visit the company's website.
