Beating the crisis (part one)
It’s no secret that the Portuguese economy is in a bit of a mess, especially after a €78billion EU-bailout earlier this year. So, it was encouraging to see the positive response that the construction industry has made on a recent trip to a road construction site in the centre of this beautiful country.
A leading engineering works company, Mota-Engil Engenharia, has broadened its horizons on an international basis to fight its way out of the financial crisis. The 65-year-old construction company has also won some new tenders for road-building projects in its home market.
One of these contracts is the 567km extension to the IC3, which is backed by a huge €939million investment. This will be funded by road tolls over a 30-year period and is typical of how the market is now approached in Portugal. Mota-Engil is working on seven similar public/private partnerships – consisting of Roads of Portugal (a government agency) a toll road company and a group of contractors – at the same time.
We were there to see a Hitachi ZX670LCH-3 (pictured) on a stretch of the new road between Penela and Coimbra. It was being used to excavate 45,000m³ of earth per month – half of the overall target – and the large Zaxis excavator will move a total of 650,000m³ of clay, soil and heavy rock over the next 15 months.
Posted by Paul Directors on 31 Oct 2011 at 15:15
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