Australia: Salini-impregilo and Ghella win two infrastructure contracts
Italian companies operating in Australia continue to achieve winning results in the infrastructure sector, as proven by the contracts won by Salini-Impregilo and Ghella.
In particular, Salini-Impregilo won a contract for the construction of the Snowy 2.0 Hydro Power plant, the Country’s largest hydropower plant. The project is worth more than 5 billion Australian dollars (over 3.2 billion euros) and envisages a sizable expansion of the historic Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme, a complex including dams, galleries and hydropower generators, that was completed in the second half of the 20th century.
At full operation, after the renovation work, the Snowy Scheme will increase its current power production capacity by more than 2,000 MW (that add on to the current production of 4,100 MW), generating electricity for more than half a million households. In terms of employment, the project is estimated to create approximately 5,000 new jobs.
In Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, the Italian construction company Ghella, in a consortium with other international and local enterprises, won the contract to build the Cross River Rail, a project worth 5.4 billion Australian dollars (about 3.5 billion euros) that envisages the construction of 10.2 km of railway lines, including 5.9 km di galleries, to improve the city’s South-East connections across the Brisbane River to the financial and economic heart of the city. In particular, Ghella will be in charge of designing and building the underground sections and the 4 new stations planned. The Cross River Rail is the largest infrastructure project planned by the Government of Queensland, which has allocated special funds combining them with special public-private partnership schemes to implement its public investment plan worth approximately 46 billion Australian dollars (30 billion euros) over the next 4 years. The project is forecast to generate approximately 7,700 new jobs and to considerably improve the transportation systems inside a continually expanding city that is estimated to reach a population of 5 million inhabitants by 2036. The infrastructure sector continues to generate important opportunities thanks to the sizable financing provided both by the federal and state governments: the federal Government alone plans to invest more than 100 billion dollars over the next decade.
Sparkle to Invest on the Deployment of BlueMed: the First Submarine Cable Connecting Palermo with Genoa up to Milan, strengthening Italy’s role as digital gateway between Africa, Middle East, Asia and Europe.
Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top ten global operators, announces a long-term investment for the deployment of BlueMed, a submarine multi-fibre cable linking Palermo with Genoa.
The new cable – planned to be operational by 2020 – will cross the Tyrrhenian Sea connecting Sparkle’s Sicily Hub in Palermo – an open data centre which serves eighteen international cables – with Genoa’s new open landing station, directly connected to Milan’s rich digital ecosystem. BlueMed will also include multiple branches within the Tyrrhenian Sea and is set to support further extensions southbound of Sicily.
With a capacity up to 240 Tbps and about 1,000 km long, BlueMed will provide advanced connectivity between Middle East, Africa, Asia and the European mainland hubs with up to 50% latency reduction from existing terrestrial cables connecting Sicily with Milan.
In addition, Sparkle’s new open landing station in Genoa is set to become the alternative priority access for other upcoming submarine cables looking for a diversified entry way to Western Europe, thus strengthening Italy’s role as digital gateway between Africa, Middle East, Asia and Europe.