ACCIONA and FCC to build new container terminal in Cadiz (Spain)

Cadiz Bay Port Authority has awarded the 91 million euro contract to a 50-50 joint venture between the two companies.

This first phase of the project will be built on 22 hectares.

Cadiz Bay Port Authority (Cadiz, Spain) has awarded the contract to build a new container port, a strategic project to restructure and revitalize the city's port activity, to a 50-50 joint venture formed by ACCIONA and FCC.

In this first phase, the 91 million euro project consists of the development of a new terminal on 22 hectares of reclaimed land with 590 meters of dock frontage, a 320 meter breakwater, and a draft of 16 meters. The terminal will be located between the East breakwater and Navantia pier No. 5; construction is expected to be completed in three and a half years.

The new terminal will make it possible to transfer the existing container traffic to new facilities with superior equipment and services located so as to divert heavy vehicle traffic away from the city centre and to separate passenger and freight within the port area. The new terminal will substantially increase storage capacity and enable the port to accommodate larger vessels, with a draft of 16 meters, compared with 10.5 meters in the existing container area.

The project involves construction using armor stone, caissons and concrete cubes as well as dredging of the adjoining areas as required to enable vessels to dock and guarantee the draft. Some figures to illustrate the scale of the project: it will require 3.2 million cubic meters to be dredged, and it will use over 100,000 cubic meters of concrete, 8,000 cubic blocks of concrete weighing 12 metric tons each, 1.1 million metric tons of rock and gravel, and over 4 million kilos of steel.

The joint bid by ACCIONA and FCC offers the utmost protection for the surroundings so as to minimize the environmental impact, as required in the Declaration of Environmental Impact and laid out in the bid conditions. The two partners have extensive experience with the construction of large port infrastructure and their proprietary technology and methodologies enabled them to tailor their bid to the needs of Cadiz Bay Port Authority.

ACCIONA has executed notable port projects in Spain, such as Algeciras, Tarragona, Escombreras and El Ferrol, using proprietary concrete caisson construction technology; in July, it was awarded a contract worth over 400 million euros to provide the engineering, design and construction of the outer breakwaters for a shipyard in São João da Barra, Brazil, which will be the largest in Latin America.

FCC has considerable experience in large port projects. Its extensive list of references in this type of infrastructure includes the Condamine Floating Dock in Monaco, the expansion of Musel port in Gijón, the bulk terminal in Castellón, and the port of Igoumenitsa in Greece.