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Two Turkish contractors have been awarded a major road project in Iraq. The package of works is worth some US$415 million and the deal requires the construction work to be completed within three years. The Turkish contractors are Elitas Insaat, Kur Insaat Ticaret ve Sanayi, and Intas Insaat Taahhut Ticaret. The contract is for the 60-Metre Road project in Sulaymaniyah.

Chicago Pneumatic (CP) has unveiled its comprehensive new concrete equipment range. In applications from walls to floor slabs, the range has products to cover every step of the job, from vibration and levelling to finishing and cutting. Freshly poured concrete has air voids which must be removed by vibration to increase its density and finished strength. Depending on the concrete’s depth and slump, this can be achieved using a poker or screed. Customers can now choose mechanical, electric or pneumatic p

The Italian Samoter and Asphaltica 2014 joint exhibition run in Verona, Italy attracted in excess of 40,000 visitors. According to the organisers, the response to the jointly run shows reveals signs of steady recovery for the European market. Of those visitors some 15% came from outside Italy and from 55 countries in all. The top ten nations represented in terms of attendance were France, Germany, Switzerland, USA, The UK, Russia, Slovenia, China, Brazil and Spain. There were 445 exhibiting companies (106 f

The tender process is underway for the third section of Colombia’s Pacific route connecting La Pintada and La Felisa. This route forms part of the Autopistas de la Prosperidad project between Medellin and Buenaventura. The 231km section includes 26 bridges and three tunnels and will cost some US$621.4 million to construct. All three sections plus the Magdalena and Norte highway will be awarded by July 2014 with works due to begin in 2015. The highway stretches should all be finished in 2020. For the first s

The authorities in the UAE have released data showing that over the past 15 years, at least 224 people were killed in crashes involving mini-vans, buses and trucks on the country’s roads. For the most part the fatalities involved workers going to, or coming back from, work and on stretches of major highways with speed limits of 100km/h. The deaths averaged 14/year. Records show the crashes were due to largely to reckless driving by the drivers of the heavy vehicles.

The European Road Federation (ERF) is planning a symposium, ‘The Future Road Infrastructure Challenges’ to be held in Brussels on June 18th. Topics to be covered will include future plans for infrastructure investment, sustainability, intelligent transport systems, financing and innovation. The event will be held at the Hotel Thon and a high number of industry attendees is expected, with a number of firms also exhibiting in an area within the hotel’s conference centre. The ERF says that the event is aimed a

Work is commencing to repair and upgrade Mozambique’s National Road 6 in Sofala Province. The work will take three years to complete and will cost some US$400 million. The project is being carried out by Chinese contractor Anhui Foreign Economic Construction. The upgrades include widening the route, with the stretch between Dondo and Beira being a focus for improvement. The project also includes repairing a number of existing bridges and building several new bridges. Once the upgrade is complete, the route

Munich-based light equipment manufacturer Wacker Neuson reports a healthy balance sheet despite difficult conditions. The company says that group revenue climbed by 13% for the first quarter, compared with the same period last year. This a new record for the first quarter of €291.6 million, compared with €257.1 million for the same period in 2013. The performance was affected by currency fluctuations as currency values in many emerging markets as well as the US dollar lost ground against the Euro in the fir

A study from the US focussing on driving impairment from alcohol reveals results of major concern. According to the results, even drivers who are minimally impaired are more often to blame for fatal car crashes than the sober drivers they collide with. The study analysed data from crashes in the US and was led by UC San Diego sociologist David Phillips. The results were published in the British Medical Journal group’s Injury Prevention. In all the study examined 570,731 fatal collisions, from 1994 to 2011.T