Friday, December 18, 2015 — BESIX Group is confident about 2016 as it starts off with a full and well balanced order book which has reached a historically high level.
This month BESIX Group could secure several new projects, most notably in the Middle-East, where BESIX and Six Construct celebrated 50 years of presence earlier this year. In Bahrain the company was assigned the contract for building a LNG Terminal. In Qatar we won the contract for building additional aircraft stands for the Hamad International Airport of Doha and we also received the green light for a new key venue in view of the FIFA World Cup 2022 in addition to the on-going renovation works for the Khalifa stadium. To top things off we are finalizing the contract for building a major leisure and residential complex on Jumairah Palm Island, Dubai.
In Europe too we were assigned multiple major contracts before the year-end. Last Monday BESIX Nederland signed a contract for the Traverse Dieren project, a 600 meter long underpass in the center of Dieren, near Arnhem. Through the Sas van Vreeswijk consortium BESIX Nederland is also taking the lead in a PPP project for building the third lock, renovating the existing monumental locks and the maintenance of the entire Beatrix complex commissioned by Rijkswaterstaat. Still in the Netherlands, and together with Sanotec, the Group’s division which specializes in water management systems, we were also granted the contract for the design, renovation and construction of the Den Bosch sewage treatment installation.
Earlier this year we could secure the contract for building a hospital (Clinique Saint Jean L’Ermitage) on the site of Melun, France. In Belgium we won the contract for the Hanzeterminal in Zeebrugge, one of the last extensions of the inner port. Furthermore we obtained the contracts and already started the works for a large building complex in Ghent and the Ijzerlaan project in Antwerp, one of the first projects of the Oosterweel connection. In addition we could add the second phase of the residential building complex Lustica Bay in Montenegro and the Radisson Blu Hotel in Andermatt, Switzerland to the order book.
At the end of 2015 our order book, including these recent additions, represents a contract value of about 3.5 billion €, which is an increase of approximately 18% as compared to last year. We expect this figure to grow further as the Group anticipates additional wins for a few other prestige projects in the Gulf Region and Central Asia.