Steel Bridges News

German engineering and services group Bilfinger aims to sell its civil engineering division quickly and, at the same time, is open to acquisitions abroad, the chief executive of the company was quoted as saying on Saturday. The company is accepting expressions of interest and preparing the unit for sale, CEO Roland Koch told newspaper Die Welt, confirming a story published by Reuters on Friday. "We just launched the process," he said. Bilfinger wants to wean itself off a business model vulnerable to price wars in the building sector and focus on providing higher-margin engineering and services for industrial facilities, power plants and real estate. The company said earlier in May that it aimed to exit certain parts of its construction activities.

As part of a development project related to the future offshore wind farm ”Parc éolien en mer de Fécamp” in France, MT Højgaard is to install a deep water concrete foundation employing new techniques that will reduce cost of offshore wind farm. The newly developed prototype foundation is based on proven technologies known from the oil and gas, tunnel and bridge industry and in combination with the installation method. The foundation is to be towed about 25 kilometres into the Channel from Le Havre, and then placed in  the exact position where the depth of the sea is 35 metres.The installation of the prototype foundation will take place at the end of 2014.

Sherwin-Williams offers Euronavy ES301, a solvent-free anticorrosive epoxy designed for application over marginally prepared surfaces. Sherwin-Williams acquired Euronavy in December 2008. “Euronavy ES301 is an extremely durable surface-tolerant coating that allows customers to protect their steel assets against corrosion in an extremely cost-effective way,” said Brad Rossetto, Vice President, Marketing, Sherwin-Williams Protective & Marine Coatings. The product can be applied with no dew point restrictions over damp steel surfaces and over flash-rust, reducing application time and costs. Coating can occur immediately after hydroblasting or other water preparation methods without drying.

Japanese shipbuilder Hitachi Zosen Corp and steelmaker NKK Corp. agreed to merge their shipbuilding operations into a single company on October 1, 2002. The move, which will result in Japan's second-biggest shipmaker after Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., is aimed at coping with increasingly harsh global competition by reducing production costs and speeding up product development. It comes as a growing number of Japanese companies are forming alliances in the shipbuilding industry to compete with South Korean rivals, which are benefiting from low manufacturing costs and the weakened won. The news boosted shares of both companies. NKK surged 9.52 percent to close at 92 yen, its highest price for the business year to March, while Hitachi Zosen jumped 4.49 percent to 93 yen.