Week of 27 June
1. A completed façade, in complete safety (UAE)
This is an important milestone, both for our BESIX teams in the Middle East and for the experts of the BESIX Engineering façade department: our colleagues from Six Construct have completed the installation of the last façade panel of the 340-metre-high Dubai Uptown Tower! The façade consists of 8,543 panels and was designed by BESIX Engineering. Congratulations to all for this outstanding milestone. We can say without a doubt that the result is even more beautiful than the original artistic impressions of the project. The site has demonstrated the quality of BESIX's expertise in many areas. Site safety is one of them, as Six Construct has recently exceeded the fifteen-million-hour mark for safe working without a lost time incident. How great is that?
2. It was worth a bottle of champagne (Cameroon)
At the construction site of the Nachtigal project, which will produce one third of Cameroon's energy, the company EM1 (Elecnor) has installed the stator of the first turbo-alternator unit of the future hydroelectric power plant. The stator, in which the rotor rotates, is the fixed part of the alternator, which in turn transforms mechanical energy into electrical energy. Of course, for the stator to be installed, the construction work in this area had to be completed on time. The challenge was so huge that EM1 bet a bottle of champagne that our BESIX team would not succeed. Of course, our colleagues took up the challenge …and won the bet brilliantly. Do never underestimate BESIX! Congrats to the team.
3. An impressive operation over the Brussels ring road (Belgium)
This is one of the largest works underway on the Brussels ring road, currently being carried out by BESIX and BESIX Infra. It consists of replacing the old Hector Henneau Avenue bridge with a new infrastructure, twice as wide, with a road axis, safe lanes for bicycles and pedestrians, a corridor for buses and even a green eco-passage to encourage the passage of animals. On Saturday night, traffic on the Brussels ring road was interrupted for a few hours to install the first part of the bridge deck on the new piers. A 800-tonne steel structure, installed to the nearest millimetre. The operation, brilliantly carried out by our teams and their partners, marks the end of the first phase of the work. This section of the new bridge will be open to traffic at the end of 2022. The old bridge will then be demolished and replaced by the second section of the new bridge. The entire project will last until 2024.
4. A safety award for Jacques Delens (Belgium)
Last Tuesday, the Belgian organisation Constructiv organised the 4th edition of the Construction Awards Brussels. The quality of Jacques Delens' internal training and safety policy was rewarded with the "Wellbeing and Safety" award. The selection criteria included the average number of hours spent on safety training for each worker. Congratulations to all the site managers and the personnel and safety prevention managers. Safety is BESIX Group's number one priority, at each of our sites worldwide. Many thanks to Jacques Delens' teams for being such good ambassadors once again!
And then this… BYC hosts its first post-pandemic football tournament (Belgium)
For the first time since May 2019, BYC Belgium was able to host its traditional Football Tournament. 16 teams from different entities vied for the coveted BYC Football Cup. At the end, it was the team from aug.e that took home the glory, with the RTBF team and Biltong team coming in 2nd and 3rd place. BESIX Unitec delivered the top scorer of the tournament: Jeroen De Wachter from team VDB United! 200 players and fans attended the tournament on the grounds of SC Mechelen. Thank you to all attendees for this evening displaying our shared passion, respect, and unity!
