Delays at the Greater Gabbard project mean that the wind farm off the English coast will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm only briefly, till the larger London Array project reaches construction completion.
The owner of one of the world’s largest offshore wind farms, located more than 20 kilometers off the coast of England, has lodged a large claim against the contractor, Fluor Corp., for delayed completion due to defective construction.
Photo Courtesy of In-Press With the last few sections of structural steel recently erected, the U.K.'s tallest building, London's Shard, stands at its 310-meter height. With the last few sections of structural steel recently erected, the U.K.'s tallest building, London's Shard, stands at its 310-meter height. Some 500 tonnes of steel in some 800 pieces went into forming the spire, which will receive over 500 panes of glass cladding.Steel subcontractor Severfield-Reeve Structures Ltd. began erecting the skyscraper's 12,500-tonne main frame around two years ago. Columns and composite floors form the lower 40 levels; concrete columns and post-tensioned slabs complete the
Photo: John Sturrock A 1,350-tonne-capacity Liebherr LR11350 crawler crane raises modules for the new cableway. Photo: John Sturrock The cable car line will serve venues for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Related Links: As London Nears 2012 Olympics, Brazil Starts Race to 2016 A giant crawler crane recently placed the final pylon for the U.K.’s first urban cable car, which will run over the River Thames in east London. As the cable car will be serving some venues for the London 2012 Olympic Games, engineers are in a hurry to complete the $71-million project before the opening ceremony in July.Being
With no time to wait for esoteric designs for the largest-ever nuclear fusion reactor to take final shape, engineers are pushing ahead with $1.3 billion worth of building and infrastructure construction at a plant site in Cadarache, France.
The global economic slowdown, coupled with rising public debt in the eurozone, has wreaked havoc with construction markets across Europe.Construction companies across the European Union are paying the price with dwindling order books and bankruptcies. In weaker countries, such as Greece, the market has collapsed, having boomed unrealistically for some years. The middle-ranking countries are building at steady levels.Towering over all of them, however, is Germany, Europe's largest construction market. Having avoided the worst excesses of the credit boom while maintaining its manufacturing sector, the country is enjoying a construction bonanza."At the moment, Germans are very optimistic about the future,"
DHV Bertrand van Ee, to be chairman of the merged group. Related Links: DHV Prepares 100-Year Flood Plan for Vietnam's Mekong Delta Netherlands-based DHV n.l., Amersfoort, and Royal Haskoning group have agreed to merge, forming one of the world’s largest independent design firms, with combined annual sales of $940 million.The new group’s main activities will be in the maritime, water and delta sectors, in addition to aviation and transportation.To be named Royal Haskoning DHV, the firm will be based in Amersfoort and will chaired by Bertrand van Ee, who holds the same position in DHV. Erik Oostwegel, Royal Haskoning’s chairman,
Related Links: Management shakeup at Leighton Holdings Spain's ACS Moves To Fix Hold On German Builder Hochtief Payouts for executives departing Germany's Hochtief A.G., after its 2011 acquisition by Spanish construction conglomerate ACS Group helped drive the German contracting giant into the red by about $210 million last year.Hochtief executives who left the firm in the last quarter of 2011 cost the group about $46 million, according to a Jan. 30 company report. The exodus began early last year as Madrid-based ACS gradually built up its ownership stake to more than 50%.New CEO Frank Stieler forecasts making a profit this
It’s not just bankers’ ballooning bonuses that can forewarn of an impending financial disaster. It now appears that periodic global cravings for ever-taller buildings might also be harbingers of economic doom. If new research from Hong Kong is to be believed, China’s frenetic high-rise boom, with India in its wake, could reflect a “misallocation of capital, which may result in an economic correction for two of Asia’s largest economies in the next five years.”Since launching its Skyscraper Index 13 years ago, Barclays Capital (BarCap) has revealed “an unhealthy correlation between construction of the next world’s tallest building and an impending
France must spend billions of dollars improving the safety of its huge fleet of nuclear plants following stress tests prompted by the destruction last March of Japan’s Fukushima reactors.
