ACCIONA in Peru

ACCIONA stepped out in Peru through ACCIONA Forwarding in 1998 and, in 2000, with ACCIONA Agua, whose contract at the Talara Refinery represented a milestone, involving the construction and later operation and maintenance of the facilities there. In 2011 and 2013, ACCIONA Ingeniería and ACCIONA Construction arrived in the country, consolidating the presence of the Company’s different business lines through several important contracts. One example is La Chira water treatment plant, which will serve over 2.5 million people and has helped the Company obtain a clear position in the Peruvian market for this type of project. Then ACCIONA Construction obtained its first contracts: a 25,000 m2 hospital in Huancayo and the prison at Pucallpa, the first project that is 100% ACCIONA, without the need for a local consortium.

These recent awards have positioned ACCIONA as a valued global Company able to undertake almost every kind of project, with a clear wish to stay in Peru for the long term, and the capacity to take part in the main pro jects put out for tender. Peru is one of the countries where ACCIONA Agua is proud to be present in both of the Company’s main business lines: Construction and Water Cycle Management. The Company can be found in three important cities in the country: Lima, the capital; Arequipa (second city by population), and; Talara (hub of the national oil industry).

TALARAL

ACCIONA Agua’s experience in Peru goes back to 2000, when it won the concession for Petroperú’s desalination plant in Talara. This facility has a production capacity of 2,200 m3/ day and, at the time, was the first industrial-scale reverse osmosis desal plant built in the country. Talara region is synonymous with oil, but also with drought. This is an arid northern region with a general shortage of natural water resources, which led ACCIONA, in coordination with Petroperú (the state company. dedicated to the exploration, exploitation, transport, refining, distribution and sale of oil-derived fuels), to pitch for a Concession Contract for the construction and operation of a desalination plant until 2017. The Petroperú facility captures water through an open surface intake, located next to a fuel loading and unloading quay, at a depth of 10 meters, which makes pre-treatment difficult. But this is where ACCIONA has left its mark, contributing technological capacity and experience.

AREQUIPA

In Arequipa, southern Peru, ACCIONA Agua built the wastewater treatment plant for the city and is operating and maintaining it for three years. This plant will benefit getting on for 240,000 people (30% of the population) and will contribute to solving sanitary and environmental problems in the northern tip of the metropolitan area, as well as decontaminating the river Chili. For this, the plant needed a total of 130 workers. By biologically treating waste water, it plans to reduce the pollution burden by 90%, which will allow the water to be used for agriculture in the future.

LIMA

In the capital, ACCIONA Agua is finishing building La Chira WWTP and manages the water services for seven million residents in the city. La Chira WWTP is a facility that will treat volumes of up to 11.3 m3/s and will give Lima a sewage-free coast. The works include building a tunnel taking raw water to the plant and an underwater outlet which will pump the processed water into the sea. This plant will treat waste water from 2.6 million inhabitants and will contribute to solving the sanitary and environmental problems of Lima, whose collectors currently tip directly into the sea without any treatment whatsoever. ACCIONA Agua will operate the plant for 25 years from this summer onwards. Also in Lima, ACCIONA Agua (in association) will manage three water services contracts, involving:

• Maintenance of the networks, drinking water systems and sewers in the Southern Services Management area (eight city districts).
• Commercial management of water in two lots in the north of the city, serving over three million people over three years, for which 600 people will be employed.

These activities involve the substitution of 61 km of supply and sewage pipes, more than 17,300 household connections, as well as the maintenance of valves, firefighting taps and macro-meters. In this way, ACCIONA Agua is contributing to improved potable water services in Lima, a vital task in the social development of the city.

Chira WWTP was nominated by the Inter-American Development Bank for the 360˚ Infrastructure Award, as one of the 12 best privately-financed projects in the region that significantly benefits the population

ACCIONA ENGINEERING

The presence of ACCIONA Ingeniería (Engineering) in Peru is continuously growing in pace with the growth of the country. Thanks to the knowledge it has acquired in over 50 years of operations, the company is able to lend support to new civil engineering and industrial projects for sustainable economic and social development. It is currently undertaking two highly important projects:

• The Lambayeque master plan, supporting the creation of a new port which will give rise to a new economic center in northern Peru. It will help diversify freight transport, 90% of which presently has to go through a bottleneck at Puerto de Callao, constrained by the slow growth of the city.
• The Borde Costero coastal study, for the resorts of Las Delicias, Buenos Aires and Huanchaco, responding to a historic problem of beach erosion producing serious difficulties for the tourist sector and coastal housing in La Libertad region. The study offers a solution which will halt the persistent erosion that has occurred over the past 40 years.

Other significant projects are the construction of a second bridge at Puente Villena (Miraflores, Lima),and the hydraulic project for recovering the capacity of  the Tablachaca reservoir dam, part of the Mantaro hydro complex responsible for 17% of Peru’s electricity.

Also read Manuel Cáceres, ACCIONA Peru Country Director