Week of 15 April
1. Construction railway bridge Rail Baltica reaches big milestone (Latvia)
In the Latvian capital Riga, BERERIX recently started works on the first bridge abutment in the river for the railway bridge across the River Daugava. The construction of the abutment structure will be carried out from a barge using special equipment.
As a first step, the teams have cleaned the river beds, during which sunken material and debris from the old bridge dating from war were found. Currently, focus is on the realisation of the rectangular sheet piling structure and execution of drilling pile works. The next phase will involve pumping out the water and the construction of abutment itself. This is expected to be completed by early autumn. Best of luck, team BERERIX!
The new railway bridge will be about one kilometre long and 17 metre wide. In addition to railway infrastructure, it will also provide pedestrian and cycling lanes with multiple access points, significantly improving access to the Riga city centre.
2. Reinforcing safety and tension pile test at Tanga jetty (Tanzania)
In the bay of Tanga, on the north coast of Tanzania, BESIX is participating in a project to design and build a jetty and load-out facilities. To reinforce safety linked to lifting activities on site, our teams followed a lifting workshop, during which key areas were pinpointed for improving their lift management system. The workshop did not only reveal areas for improvement, but also resulted in the employment of two local rigging of controllers and a female junior lifting engineering, as well as the transition of a safety advisor to the lifting team!
There’s more, because our teams have also reached a nice milestone recently! After the successful placement of the first crosshead and first loading platform, they have completed a tension pile test with success! During the tension pile test, the load-bearing capacity of the loading platform was evaluated by subjecting it to a controlled upward force, measuring its response to determine its strength and stability. The test was an excellent cooperation between the project’s technical office and BESIX Engineering. Congratulations, team Tanga and BED!
3. Nachtigal Hydropower Project reached completion rate of 93.1 % (Cameroon)
In the middle of the rainforest of Cameroon, BESIX is contributing to the Nachtigal Hydropower Project, including a hydropower plant on the Sanaga River, a 1.5 km long dam, a supply canal, and water intake installations. Since works on the Nachtigal Hydropower Project started in 2021, our team and its partners have completed 93.1 % of the works! Focus is currently on finishing the civil and electromechanical works.
In partnership with French company NGE and Moroccan company SGTM, BESIX is taking part in developing the Nachtigal hydro-electric project in Cameroon, which will cover 30 % of the country's energy needs.
Go, team Nachtigal!
4. ROCO consortium protects Canal Tunnels from collisions (Belgium)
Our colleagues of the ROCO joint-venture in Antwerp (Belgium) have reached a big milestone in the construction of the Canal Tunnels, which are part of the Oosterweel project. As the top of these stacked tunnels will be higher than then river bed, they needed to realise an anti-collision structure at the Amerika dock, so that the tunnels are protected against a possible collision with a ship. For this impressive operation 40,000 m³ of silt was carefully dredged and transported, after which the embankment was built up with 55,000 tonnes of granular material and more than 10,000 tonnes of large crushed stone. Next step? Completion of the embankment and sheet piling works, which are planned for this summer.
And then this... Unprecedented rainfall causes flooding in UAE
In the past days, the United Arabic Emirates experienced its most substantial rainfall on record within 24 hours, which resulted in unprecedented levels of precipitation across various regions. In 24 hours, Dubai had witnessed over 5.59 inches (about 142 mm) of rainfall, far exceeding the average annual rainfall of 3.73 inches (about 95 mm). This has caused flash flooding and damage in some areas in the UAE. While the impact on BESIX Middle East’s sites and operations is being measured, we wish the best to our colleagues in the UAE whose homes and/or project sites have been damaged by this unprecedentented weather.
