Road Structures

Four new motorways are to be built in Morocco following approval being given passed by the country’s government. The projects will cost a total of US$3.22 billion in all. The new routes include a motorway between Safi, Marrakesh and Béni-Mellal over a distance of 356-422km and costing from $1.35-1.56 billion. MAD 13bn and MAD 15bn. The other major connection is a motorway between Agadir and Guelmin, set to cost anywhere from $727 million- $1.77 billion, depending on the route and technical constraints, with

A major new bridge project is planned for Myanmar.The US$168 million bridge will span the Yangon River connecting the town of Dala with the city of Yangon. Work on the Yangon-Dala Overbridge looks set to commence in 2015 and should take five years to complete.

A major highway project could boost connectivity in Australia. The country’s South Road upgrade would cost close to US$5.43 billion (A$7 billion) over the next 10 years. The proposal is to turn the South Road in Adelaide into a non-stop north-south corridor. To complete the work, another 34km of road needs to be developed. The strategy shows 10 different road projects need to be finished at a total $5.38 billion in today's money, and does not include two projects that have already received financing, namely

There was a big bang in a small town in the US state of Pennsylvania this month when a fragmentation explosion brought down the 100-year-old Reynolds Road Bridge. It was the end to the unloved bridge near Factoryville, population around 1,500. Factoryville is notable for a lack of factories ever since the one and only plant, a wool-into-cloth factory, closed down several years after it opened in the 1800s. Local residents were not sorry to see the felling of the 40m long, reinforced concrete arch deck

An optimistic tone in South Korea is seeing the construction of an expressway connecting Seoul and Munsan. The project is being carried out in a bid to boost trade with North Korea. This is in spite of the current uncertain political situation in North Korea. The expressway will connect South Korean capital Seoul to Munsan, which lies to the south of the Demilitarised Zone bordering North Korea. More private investment can be roped in via the plan to build the expressway. An environmental impact assessment

The Brazilian Government is considering increasing the number of projects being privatised in a bid to boost investment in the country. Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff has suggested increasing the number of federal roads included in the privatisation programme from four to 11. The economic team has presented 20 new road stretches to be considered for inclusion in the programme. These routes will be studied in order to determine which will generate the most interest from the private sector, with six or se

The Australian Government is only allocating central funding to urban road projects in its Budget 2015. Major projects that will receive federal funding are the WestConnex motorways, urban roads around Badgerys Creek and the widening of the Pacific Highway. The Federal Government will provide US$1.2 billion (A$1.5 billion) in grant funding as well as an additional $1.6 billion (A$2 billion) loan for the WestConnex project. Meanwhile the NorthConnex project under the Pennant Hills Road in Sydney will receive

Chinese firm Zoomlion has won a significant order for Saudi Arabia in the shape of a new 174RSU concrete pump. The machine is being supplied to a local equipment dealer through Zoomlion’s Concrete Machinery Branch Company’s overseas marketing company in Saudi Arabia. This is the first time Zoomlion has exported a concrete pump product to the Saudi Arabian market and it is expected to open up a route for the firm to sell more of the units to the country. The deal is of note as historically there has

The Swedish Thomas Concrete Group has acquired assets of Coastal Concrete, a US company which operates ten concrete plants in Georgia and South Carolina. As a result, the group is strengthening its position in the concrete market across a large region on the US east coast between Atlanta and Raleigh. Coastal Concrete is one of the leading producers of ready-mixed concrete in several major cities along the Atlantic coast of Georgia and South Carolina, and the acquisition will reinforce the group's “already