| Ecuador Building New Capitol City Airport With design about one-third complete, construction is about to start on a new $400-million airport for the Ecuadorian capital, Quito. Sited where future expansion is possible, some 18-kilometer east of the city, the new facility will replace the overtaxed existing airport. Air traffic is expected to grow 4.5 to 5.5% a year and the planned 3.6-kilometer runway will be expanded to 4.1 km before a second runway is added. The 38,000-sq-m terminal is planned initially for up to 4 million passengers per year. Passenger throughput is due to reach about 7.5 million in a second phase, when needed. The airport "is designed for maximum flexibility to allow international and domestic growth," according to Massimo Polveraccio, director of infrastructure private finance at Aecon Construction Group Inc., Toronto. Aecon and Brazil?s Andrade Gutierrez Concessões S.A., Saõ Paulo, equally share nearly 70% of Corporación Quiport S.A., which has a fixed-price, lump-sum, date-certain design-build contract with Canadian Commercial Corp. The company is developing the airport under a 35-year intergovernmental agreement between Ecuador and Canada. Construction must be completed within 51 months, says Polveraccio. "A large component of the construction contract will be subcontracted locally to various companies," he adds. Design is by API Architects Inc., with engineering by Marshall Macklin Monahan Ltd., both of Toronto. 
Wastewater Treatment Attracts Earth Tech to Mexico By combining design-build with operations (DBO) and sometimes also with financing (DBFO), Long Beach, California-based Earth Tech Inc. has built a steady business in delivering long-needed Mexican wastewater treatment facilities. Its most recent DBFO project in Chihuahua is due for completion in January 2006. The 50-mgd plant, which will raise capacity 100% for treating the city?s non-agricultural wastewater, carries a 10-year operations deal. Earth Tech also had built the city?s existing 25-mgd plant, which the firm has been operating for the past nine years. Under another DBFO deal, Earth Tech is building a $22-million municipal wastewater treatment plant at Xalapa, and is operating four industrial units for the state oil company. Early last year, Earth Tech began operating a 28-mgd plant in Veracruz under a 15-year DBO contract. A few months later it won another, $22.5-million DBO award for four plants (Mexicali, Guadalupe Victoria, Estacion Coahuila and Los Algodones) in Mexicali, Baja California. Including expansion of two other units (Mexicali and Ciudad Morelos), the six plants combined will handle 50 mgd starting in late 2006.
Chile Builds Suspense Into Suspension Bridge |  | | A three-tower, 2,635-meter-long suspension bridge could tame Chile?s Chacao Channel. | Winning a $625-million contract for the design and construction of Chile?s 2,635-meter-long suspension bridge to Chiloé Island early this year is just the start of an arduous and risk-filled process for the victorious consortium. Since July, the international team has been working to verify geotechnical assumptions made by government-appointed engineers before it can start construction, perhaps in 2008. Crossing the Chacao Channel, 1,000 km south of Santiago, the bridge will have two main suspended spans of 1,100 m and 1,055 m. Of three roughly 180-m-tall towers, the southern one will be sited on land. The central support tower will rise from a mid-channel rock outcrop and the northern tower will be located in 25 m of water. The bridge carries Highway 5, which runs from Puerto Montt to Pargua, onto Chacao, located on the north side Chiloé Island. A Danish/Chilean Joint Venture led by COWI A.S., Copenhagen, furnished the conceptual design used for the bidding. But "we must first confirm the assumptions of this design...and then complete the design," explains Michael Cegelis, executive vice president of American Bridge International (ABI) Coraopolis, Pa., a consortium member. The consortium holds a 30-year design-build-finance-operate contract. Over 80% of it is owned equally by ABI, Germany's Hochtief A.G., Essen, and Paris-based Vinci Group. Two local contractors share the balance. During the exploratory phase, due to end this December, "we will analyze the core samples and validate that the bearing assumptions...were correct," notes Cegelis. "If there are fatal flaws...work may be stopped unless there are corresponding solutions". Then, "we must confirm...the other assumptions [and] prepare a guaranteed maximum price," he adds. An $18-million bank loan raised by the consortium is financing current work. If the project is abandoned for technical reasons, the government will repay the loan. Otherwise, it will be absorbed into a larger construction loan. "We have a long way to go but at this point, this seems like a reasonable endeavor," says Cegelis. Click here for In The News archives >> | 
