Construction and Infrastructure

UK construction firm Costain has increased its all-share offer for the business services group Mouchel, valuing it at around £150 million.

The revised offer values each Mouchel share at about 135 pence. Mouchel has already rejected one bid from Costain, made in December last year.

Spanish construction company ACS has gained a key stake in rival Hochtief, after it announced it now holds more than 30 per cent of shares in the German group.

The stake represents a key stage in ACS’s strategy to take full control of Hochtief, because it can now buy Hochtief shares on the open market and accumulate more than half of the company. ACS announced its bid for full control of Hochtief last September.

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. today announced two contract awards, one in Idaho, United States, and one in Newfoundland, Canada.

The former is a contract from Bechtel Marine Propulsion Corporation to provide engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) services in support of the Expended Core Facility Recapitalization Project.

The total construction project cost is estimated to range from $300 to $500 million.

Iraq has given the go-ahead for Royal Dutch Shell to build a dock in the Shatt al-Arab waterway, to help move heavy equipment to the Majnoon oilfield.

Shell is to fund construction of the 25-metre quay, which will be used to move materials from the sea port at Umm Qasr near Basra to the Majnoon oilfield it is developing—a transportation method that is faster, safer and easier than moving materials by truck.

The African Development Bank has approved $232 million in loans and grants to Ethiopia to fund the expansion of the country's electricity grid.

Earlier this year, Addis Ababa launched a five-year economic development plan encompassing a massive expansion of the country’s infrastructure. The plan looks to boost Ethiopia’s power production from 2,000 MW to 10,000 MW; and it also includes the construction of 2,395 kilometres of railway lines.

Ethiopia wants to expand electricity coverage to 75 per cent of the population from 41 per cent currently.

Balfour Beatty, the UK-based market leading infrastructure specialist, has won a five-year rail renewal contract on the London Underground system.

The contract is to carry out track renewal work, which will include the replacement of ballasted track, points and crossings, including all ancillary signalling and drainage works on the Tube network.

The total value of the work to be carried out by the partnership is £220 million, of which around half will be Balfour Beatty's share.

Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia, has familiar water supply and hygiene problems. Managing director George Ndongwe tells John O’Hanlon how Lusaka Water & Sewerage Company aspires to become a world-class utility.

By financing the construction of the DeLong Mountain Transportation System in the icy Northwest, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority made the development of the world’s second-largest zinc mine possible. Karsten Rodvik and Jim Hemsath talk to Gay Sutton about how the project has boosted the region’s economic development.

However clever the internals might be, a building is judged from the outside. Alan Swaby talks to one of the construction industry’s most innovative suppliers.

The story of Target Engineering Construction Company is intrinsically linked to growth and development over the past four decades in the Middle East. Ayman Taji has masterminded the company’s steady growth throughout that period; and here he talks to Andrew Pelis about the legacy he will leave behind when he shortly steps down from his role.