The Cádiz Bay Harbour Authority has awarded the contract to build the new Cádiz container terminal to a joint venture partnering ACCIONA and FCC in equal shares. The project is a strategic step in the reorganization and fostering of the city's harbour-related business.

The first phase of the 91-million-euro project calls for the construction of a new 22-hectare terminal with 590 metres of wharf length and a draft of 16 metres, plus a 320-metre sea wall. The new terminal will stand between the Levante jetty and Navantia Quay Number 5. Completion is scheduled for within three and a half years.

The new terminal will make it possible to shift container traffic from its current location to purpose-built facilities with more equipment and services, at a location that will avoid routing heavy traffic through the city centre and will separate passenger and goods activities inside the harbour zone. The new terminal will substantially increase the storage area available, and, because it will have a 16-metre draft instead of the 10.5-metre draft at the current container zone, it will be able to accommodate larger ships.

The winning design combines a number of construction methods employing rock armour, caissons and cubic concrete blocks. It also includes the dredging of neighbouring areas as needed to enable ships to manoeuvre and to ensure the final depth of the water next to the terminal. The figures help illustrate the sheer size of the project: 3.2 million cubic metres of dredging, more than 100,000 cubic metres of concrete, a total of 8,000 cubic concrete blocks (each weighing 12 metric tons), 1.1 million cubic metres of quarry material and four million kilos of steel.

The proposal submitted by the ACCIONA/FCC joint venture calls for the utmost in environmental protection measures, in order to get the work done with the least possible environmental impact, as required by the environmental impact statement and reflected in the tender. Both partners will be bringing their years of expertise in designing and building large harbour structures to the project, and they have the proprietary methods and technology to have tailored their bid to the needs of the Cádiz Bay Harbour Authority.

ACCIONA has engaged in a number of headline harbour projects in Spain, such as the projects at Algeciras, Tarragona, Escombreras and El Ferrol, using its proprietary technology, the concrete caisson construction system. In July it won a contract worth over 400 million euro to provide breakwater engineering, design and construction for a shipyard in São João da Barra, Brazil, which will be Latin America's largest shipyard.

FCC has a great deal of experience in major port and harbour projects. Jobs such as the La Condamine floating dock in the Principality of Monaco, the new Seville lock, the enlargement of El Musel Harbour in Gijón, the bulk goods terminal at Castellón Harbour and Igoumenitsa Harbour in Greece are just a small sample of the firm's experience from its long list of successfully finished jobs in this type of infrastructure.