Foundations for the underground tram stop at Warsaw West station
_ Soletanche Bachy, a global leader in foundations, posted record business levels. Earnings were evenly divided across local projects and major operations, some of which were carried out in collaboration with other VINCI Construction entities, and the order backlog remained very high. The main projects included: in the United Kingdom, the High Speed 2 line (foundations for Old Oak Common station and over 200 engineering structures in the Birmingham area); in France, the Grand Paris Express programme, the Austerlitz holding tank and associated structures to improve the quality of water in the Seine in Paris, the Lyon–Turin rail link and the extension of the STMicroelectronics semiconductor plant in Crolles (near Grenoble); in Poland, the new underground tram stop at Warsaw West station, which is set to become the country’s leading transit hub; in the United States, the Shoreline Storage Tunnel, which will contribute to strengthening Ohio’s sanitation system; in Asia, the foundations and infrastructure of Hong Kong airport’s new Terminal 3 and the North–South Corridor urban expressway in Singapore (cut-and-cover tunnel); in Latin America, the extension of a wharf at the port of Altamira in Mexico, support-of-excavation works for the Antara tower in Mexico City and the Canoas wastewater treatment plant in Colombia, which will process 75% of the wastewater from the capital, Bogotá.
Fairbank Silverthorn storm collector
_ Bessac, which specialises in tunnels and microtunnels, has expanded significantly in Canada, where it is building the access shafts and tunnels for the Annacis Island (British Columbia) wastewater treatment plant and the Fairbank Silverthorn storm collector in Toronto, as well as in Côte d’Ivoire, where it carried out the country’s first microtunnelling project for a stormwater drainage pipe associated with a motorway structure. In France, Bessac partnered with Soletanche Bachy Fondations Spéciales to construct the treated water discharge pipe at the Bonneuil-en-France wastewater treatment plant (north of Paris), using ultra-low-carbon concrete pipes for the microtunnel lining.