Salini Impregilo News

The Panama Canal expansion project is now expected to be finished “mid of 2016” says a report in Reuters quoting the waterway's administrator. "The new set of larger locks for the Panama Canal will be complete by the end of June, after more than a year-long delay and after builders repaired cracks that had formed in the concrete walls," says  Jorge Quijano, who leads the Panama Canal Authority. The consortium building a third, bigger set of locks on one of the world's busiest maritime routes, headed by Italy's Salini Impregilo and Spain's Sacyr , is now in testing, the final step before the project's inauguration. Panama should start to benefit from the expansion in 2017…

The consortium in charge of the expansion of the Panama Canal, led by Sacyr reported that the fissures presented in the third set of locks will not delay the opening date scheduled for April 2016. The Grupo Unidos por el Canal (GUPC), comprising the Sacyr Spanish and Italian Salini Impregilo, informed  Autoridfad Panama Canal (ACP), the authority that manages the waterway, that is repairing the gaps in the walls of the locks caused by lack of steel reinforcement, and ensure other structures preventively. "Cracks were detected in one of the walls," said a spokeswoman for the Spanish construction group Sacyr, lead member of the Grupo Unidos Por el Canal consortium responsible for the expansion project. The fissures were found on the canal's Pacific Locks, the spokeswoman added.

As it enters the final stretch of a massive expansion, the Panama Canal Authority is setting its sights on an even more ambitious project worth up to $17 billion that would allow it to handle the world's biggest ships. Workers are now installing giant, 22-story lock gates to accommodate larger "Post-Panamax" ships through the Canal, one of the world's busiest maritime routes. The project involves building a third set of locks on the Canal. It is being headed by Italy's Salini Impregilo  and Spain's Sacyr, and should open on April 1, 2016.

The Panama Canal Authority (PCA) and the consortium building a third set of locks for the inter-oceanic waterway said in separate statements that they will take a dispute over cement quality to international arbitration. The PCA has asked for an international arbitration panel to review a decision to award US$233 million to the consortium expanding the canal in a dispute over cement quality. The consortium, led by Spain's Sacyr and Italy's Salini Impregilo, and including Belgium's Jan de Nul and Panama's CUSA, said in January it had won US$233 million of the US$463 million it claimed in the dispute. In the latest chapter of an often thorny relationship between the authority…

The consortium working on the extensive Panama Canal expansion has submitted two new claims for cost overruns of almost $740 million, the canal administrator said on Friday. A dispute between the canal and the consortium over cost overruns temporarily halted work on the expansion earlier this year and arguments over the project are now being heard in an arbitration court in Miami. The consortium, Grupo Unidos por el Canal, formed by Spain's Sacyr, Italy's Salini Impregilo, Belgium's Jan de Nul as well as the Panamanian company CUSA, has now presented a total of about $2.3 billion in claims for overruns, said Panama Canal Authority administrator Jorge Quijano. "We're not taking these claims at face value," said Quijano.

A $180 million claim involving the Panama Canal's disputed $1.6 billion cost overrun is headed to arbitration court in Miami next week, canal officials said on Monday. The $180 million claim by the consortium working on the massive canal expansion project is the first of several disputed construction costs that could end up in the hands of the Miami arbitrators. The cost overrun temporarily halted work on the massive expansion project in February, and the Panama Canal Authority now says the project is on track to open in January 2016.

Arbitration to decide who will bear the Panama Canal expansion project's $1.6 billion cost overrun, a dispute that temporarily halted work earlier this year, will begin in closed-door sessions in Miami later this month, according to lawyers arguing the matter. On July 21 "both sides will submit their terms and draft procedural orders for how things will work," said Carolyn Lamm, an attorney with White & Case representing the Spanish-led construction consortium. Labor and cost disputes have plagued the effort to expand the 100-year-old canal…

The Panama Canal Authority expects to formally sign a deal next week with a Spanish-led consortium to finish work on expansion of the waterway after a dispute over cost overruns held up completion, an official said on Friday. "We expect that by Thursday we should be signing said document," Panama Canal Administrator Jorge Quijano told reporters a day after announcing a deal with the GUPC consortium, which is led by Spanish builder Sacyr and Italy's Salini Impregilo. The deal, which was outlined on Thursday…