The Romanian National Road Administration has awarded FCC, in a joint venture with an Italian firm, the contract to design and build the Constanza bypass for 141.8 million euro inside a 32-month completion period.

The new 22-kilometre-long road lies west of the city. It includes five interchanges, two 3.75-metre-wide lanes in each direction, a four-metre-wide median, a three-metre-wide emergency lane and 26 structures (six viaducts, six bridges, eight overpasses and six underpasses).

Most of the bypass is to be built on embankments erected on top of loess. One special feature of the project is that it requires the construction of 755 kilometres of vibro-compacted soil columns, 0.38 metre in diameter and six metres deep, in embankments standing over five metres tall. The bypass's construction includes some 3,000,000 m3 of embankments, 2,600,000 m3 of excavation, 1,691,140 m3 of clearing of vegetation and other obstructions, 834,723 m3 of topsoil, 1,494,492 m3 of soil excavation and the laying of 360,000 tons of asphalt.

Other projects in Romania

In late 2004 the same administration awarded FCC Construcción the contract to refurbish 30 kilometres of road DN1C, in Cluj-Livada, in northern Romania, for 25.3 million euro. In 2007 FCC won the tenders for the construction and expansion of road DN1C Livada-Dej-County Limit Cluj, road DN 66 Filiasi-Petrosani, and the northern circuit of the Bucharest ring road, which includes a 240-metre-long cable-stayed bridge. FCC is also working on the widening and upgrading of the 52.2-kilometre-long Timisoara-Lugoj section of national road NR6.

It is also building the Basarab viaduct northeast of Bucharest for 135 million euro and the bridge over the Danube that will connect Bulgaria with Romania, plus the bridge's accesses.

ALPINE, FCC's Austrian subsidiary, is running two important road infrastructure projects in Romania: the general renovation of the northern section of the Bucharest ring road and the main access road to the city from the west, a total of some 13 kilometres. The joint value of the projects comes to some 65 million euro. ALPINE has also won other contracts, including two environmental projects for the installation and sanitation of two dumps and the construction of two water-purifying stations. In Bucharest the company is building the new central corporate offices of Petrom, the biggest oil and gas producer in southeast Europe, and a cable-stayed bridge.

FCC Construcción's portfolio of jobs in Romania is worth over 500 million euro. To this sum can be added the jobs signed up by ALPINE, which contribute an extra 200 million euro to the total.