The minister for development, accompanied by the presidents of the Principality of Asturias and the General Council of Asturias, the mayor of Gijón, the councilman heading the Infrastructure Department, the presidents of Puertos del Estado and the Port of Gijón and the senior management of FCC and the rest of the companies in the joint venture met today to open the expansion of El Musel Harbour, in Gijón. The expansion has doubled the harbour's facilities.

The project, built by FCC in a joint venture with other firms, consisted basically in the construction of a new seawall off Cape Torres. The seawall is a total of 3,834 metres long, enabling the creation of an additional 145 hectares of land and 140 hectares of sheltered water.

A bulk solid unloading terminal has been designed for the new area. It will have 1,250 metres of berthing lines available for depths of up to 27 metres, so it will be able to accommodate three bulk carriers at the same time, each carrying 230,000 DWT and having a draft of 20 metres.

The new terminal will be 400 metres wide and will have an unloading and storage capacity of 25 million tons for iron ore and 2 million tons for coal.

In addition to the construction of the new seawall, the project included the construction of seawalls around the perimeter of the newly reclaimed area, the filling of the space between the protective structures and the demolition of the crest of Prince of Asturias Jetty to create a connection between the pre-project harbour area and the newly expanded area.