June 24, 2008

AECON

The mountains surrounding the site of the future Quito airport are clearly visible in the distance. About 15 Canadians are on site, mostly in supervisory roles, along with about 1,000 mostly Ecuadorian workers.

Aecon and partner aim for 2010 completion of Quito international airport project

PATRICIA WILLIAMS

staff writer

Toronto-based Aecon Group Inc. and its Brazilian joint venture partner are targeting completion in October 2010 of a new $410 million (US) international airport to serve the Ecuadorian capital of Quito.

Doug Steels, president of business unit Aecon Constructors, a heavy civil construction contractor, said earthworks grading operations now are about 85 per cent complete on the mountain plateau site.

“We have more than five million cubic metres of fill in place for the runways, taxiways and the building foundations,” he said. “We should be completing the earthworks by late fall.”

In all, about seven million cubic metres of earth will be moved during the grading process.

The project includes a 3,600-metre-long runway, 38,000-square-metre terminal building, 40-metre-high air traffic control tower, passenger bridges, ancillary buildings and a four-kilometre approach road.

“We’ve also started to put in the subgrade aggregates for the runways and taxiways,” Steels said.

Building works are under construction as well, on the site about 18 kilometres east of Quito near the village of Tababela.

Steels said the concrete portion of the substructure of the terminal building is about 40 per cent complete. The foundation has been poured for the air traffic control tower.

“We’ve started concreting of the main shaft of the tower.”

In addition, work is getting under way on underground services.

“Overall, we’re pretty well on track,” said Steels.

The project is being undertaken by a 50/50 joint venture of Aecon and Brazilian construction giant Andrade Gutierrez Constructores. Prime consultants are Toronto’s MMM Group Ltd.

Aecon is acting as the managing partner of the construction joint venture.

Some 1,000 workers are on site, mostly Ecuadorian. A contingent of about 15 Canadians is also there, in various supervisory capacities.

“Some of our staff who worked on construction of Terminal 1 in Toronto and expansion of Terminal 3 have moved on to Quito,” Steels said.

A joint venture of PCL/Aecon acted as construction manager on the new terminal at Pearson.

The Quito airport is being constructed under a 51-month, fixed-price engineer-procure-construct contract signed between the city of Quito and the Canadian Commercial Corp.

The Crown corporation subcontracted 100 per cent of the construction work to the Aecon/AG Constructores joint venture.

Aecon Group Inc. also has a stake in Quiport, which was awarded a concession in 2002 to design, build, finance and operate the new airport, which will replace an outdated facility in downtown Quito.

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