Final Panama Canal contract awarded

A consortium of Spain's FCC, Mexico's ICA and Costa Rica's Meco has won the final Panama Canal dry-excavation contract with a US$ 267.8 million bid. The consortium beat Belgium's Jan de Nul, Brazil's Oderbrecht and the ISC Panama consortium to win the contract, the second largest in the US$ 5.25 billion canal expansion programme.

The contract involves the excavation of a new channel that will link a new set of locks - yet to be constructed - with the Gaillard Cut, the canal's narrowest stretch. The bid represents the last contract on the canal expansion and will involve the excavation and removal of 27 million m³ of material.

The contract will entail the opening of a 6.1 km access channel as well as the construction of a large earth and rock dam with a watertight clay core.

Panama Canal Authority (PCA) administrator Alberto Aleman Zubieta said, "The excavation project should be finished by 2013, with the entire canal expansion due for completion in 2014."