Construction and Infrastructure

UK housebuilder Persimmon has reported a rise in sales reservations taken in the year to date of 12 per cent.

The company, which made the comments in a trading update released today, said that sales rates had previously been affected by uncertainty due to the UK’s planned austerity measures and particularly bad weather during November and December.

At the beginning of 2011, Persimmon had a sales order book of £565 million, lower than its £638 million of orders in January 2010. 

With the global drive towards self-sufficiency picking up pace, Jeff Daniels looks at the efforts being made in Abu Dhabi to become self-reliant in reinforcing steel production.

For years now, Abu Dhabi has been the sand-pit for the world’s biggest names in architecture. There can’t be many other places on earth that can boast the variety and quantity of groundbreaking buildings as this Middle Eastern city. Look at the architectural magazines and it could be that even more wild and wonderful designs are yet to come.

The Export-Import Bank of the United States has given preliminary approval for an $805.6 million direct loan to South Africa’s state-owned utility Eskom.

The financing, if eventually approved, will support Eskom's purchase of engineering and construction management services which will be used to construct the Kusile power plant, located in the Emalahleni area of Mpumulanga Province.

The loan includes a business contract for Kansas, US-based Black & Veatch to provide the engineering and construction management services to Eskom.

WS Atkins, the UK-based engineering consultancy, has revealed that a pick-up in construction activity in the Middle East contributed to its strong fourth quarter results.

In a trading statement yesterday, the company said that it now anticipates results for the year ending 31 March 2011 to be ahead of current market expectations.

The company said: “The Group's operations in the Middle East have benefited from increasing activity in the second half of the year, together with further recovery of client payments against which we had previously provided.”

South Africa is planning to invest R15 billion in a new rare metals processing facility, according to a report in the newspaper Business Report.

The project, which is expected to take four years to complete, would create 43,000 direct and 86,000 indirect jobs. Staff needed to work at the facility would number around 7,000, the report said.

Dampier Port Authority is on the threshold of a major expansion programme. Gay Sutton finds out from port development manager Dr Rochelle Macdonald how Australia’s second largest bulk export port is preparing to satisfy the export needs of the rapidly growing oil & gas and mining sectors.

Andre van Niekerk, managing director of plant hire group Masshire, talks to Jayne Alverca about the unique benefits he believes the company offers to its growing network of franchisees.

Dutch construction company Remco Afrique has announced plans to continue its expansion into new markets in Africa.

The Best, Netherlands-based company, which specialises in building industrial premises, is taking advantage of the growing demand throughout Africa for new industrial buildings.

The company is currently constructing three industrial buildings in Gabon, with a total surface of 23,650 square metres.

Owens Corning announced an investment today in a new furnace to expand production capacity at its glass reinforcements facility in Tlaxcala, Mexico.

The expansion results from increasing global demand for glass reinforcements, and is the fourth production capacity increase announced by the company’s reinforcements division in recent months. Capacity increases were also recently announced in Yuhang, China; Gous-Khroustalny, Russia; and Besana, Italy.

China will loan nearly $700 million to Zimbabwe in a deal that will provide a major boost to the struggling southern African nation.

The loans awarded by China’s Export-Import Bank include $342 million for agricultural equipment and machinery, $99.5 million for health equipment and supplies, and $144 million for the renovation of Harare’s water and sewerage system.

China also provided $102 million to Zimbabwe’s government and two grants worth $14 million.