The construction of phases two and three of the municipal infrastructure for the metals cluster at the Coega Industrial Development Zone (IDZ), near Port Elizabeth, is scheduled to start early next year and is expected to cost R55-million, the Coega Development Corporation (CDC) tells Engineering News Online.
The IDZ, a R5-billion development that covers 11 000 ha of undeveloped land on South Africa's Eastern Cape coast, is a phased development around industry clusters dedicated to export-oriented manufacturing companies.
In November the CDC secured its main tenant Canadian aluminium producer Alcan, which will build a new R19-billion smelter. Tender requests for construction of municipal infrastructure in zone three phases two and three were posted on November 26.
In response to Engineering News Online’s e-mailed questions CDC spokesperson Vuyelwa Qinga-Vika said that since then, seven bidders had bought tender documents.
However, there were expectations of significantly greater interest as the closing date was December 14. It was anticipated that the successful bidder would be announced in February, with onsite work scheduled to start in March.
Qinga-Vika reported that, while a number of companies’ names remained confidential as agreements had yet to be signed, three companies, General Upholsterers, Dynamic Commodities and Biomass, had already signed the agreements.
“Currently the three investor facilities are under construction,” she explained. It is anticipated that phases two and three of the 180-ha metals cluster will take about nine months to complete.
Qinga-Vika pointed out that the site was currently “a half-developed, site with the phase one infrastructure complete and three investor top structure facilities in progress.” She said at that first phases of construction in zone one and two were complete, but that the second phase was in progress and that further phases were out on tender.
She added that she did not anticipate any challenges with this phase as construction was ‘straight-forward municipal infrastructure.”
