W
e have become accustomed to major projects moving at a
gentle pace. Going from an idea for a piece of infrastructure
through the outline planning, consultation, surveying and
detailed planning phase can take years. Financing can be a stumbling
block and then it is on to contract negotiations and the construction
phase. And despite the best efforts of contractors, delays can occur on
major projects due to their complexity and unforeseen problems. It
means timescales for projects can run to decades.
So the scheme to increase the capacity of the Suez Canal in Egypt
is something of an odd one. The announcement from the Egyptian
government that the project was not only conceived, but going ahead
came out of the blue in August. This was followed in less than three
months by the appointment of contractors to handle some of the civil
engineering, with the signing of twodredging contracts worth a total of
US$ 2 billion (see thismonth’sNews on p.6).
The ‘Why?’ of the project is a simple one to answer. With the
expansion of the Panama Canal, and rival Atlantic-to-Pacific routes
beingdeveloped inGuatemala andNicaragua, the SuezCanal’s position
as a link betweenAsia and the East coast of Americawas looking under
threat due competition from these potentially faster routes.
The plan is for a new channel to be dug alongside about half the
length of the existing canal, whichwould effectivelymake it a two-way
route – the current canal is onlywide enough for a single shipping lane
parts now.
So the idea and the rationale behind it look sound, but after that
the Egyptian government departed from the usual path of such large
scale projects. It is not clear whether there has been any environmental
impact assessment of the scheme, or how detailed the planning has
been. Given how fast things have happened, this aspect of the project
looks a bit questionable.
But financing the near US$ 9 billion construction costs looks to have
been successful, if unconventional. Such a large project wouldnormally
be financed by international institutions. But perhaps mindful of
the 1956 Suez Crisis when Israel, France and the UK tried to snatch
sovereignty of the canal fromEgypt, national ownership seems a crucial
issue and onlyEgyptian entities were allowed tobuy the bonds that will
finance this new project. Rather impressively, the Egyptian government
reportedly achieved its target in just six days.
So far, so good, but now the construction phase is under way, and
this looks challenging. The official line is that the new channel will
be completed by August next year. With work getting underway in
October, that means about a 10 month time line to dig a 73 km new
canal.That doesn’t sound like verymuch time forwhat is of the order of
a 100millionm
3
excavation! Granted there are no structures as serious
as the Panama Canal’s locks to construct, but it is still a phenomenal
civil engineering challenge.
As ever, time will tell if this is an achievable target. There is certainly
no lack of ambition on the part of the Egyptian government in terms
of the scale of the project and the speedwithwhich they want it done.
Chris Sleight
Editor
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COMMENT
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november 2014
international
construction
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