Fish fattening farm for flatfish in Mira, Comibra, Portugal

Project summary:

• This project involves the world’s largest fish farm for flatfish designed and built to date. With an investment of 135 million euros over 20 months work in this technically challenging project has already progressed to the construction stage, where only an industrial construction organisation, backed and controlled by a technical team with high levels of specialisation and exerting strict control, such as Impulso, would have been able to guarantee meeting the project’s quality, cost and scheduling objectives without deviations. A major technical and logistical challenge that has been brought into being thanks to our staff’s contributions

General information:

• Project: Fish farm for fattening turbot in Mira, Portugal.
• Promoter: Acuinova Actividades Piscícolas, S.A. (Grupo Pescanova).
• Location: Mira, Coimbra, Portugal.
• Project end date: September 2007.
• Works completion date: Expected late 2009.
• Total built area: 11,664 m2 built area and an area of 151,457 m2 for fish fattening pools.
• Plot: 2,060,872 m2.

Project outline:

• Impulso’s civil engineering group is made up of staff experienced in project and site management for highly complex marine projects. On this occasion, the major challenge lay in designing a technical solution adapted to the client's pre-established scheduling and cost objectives.
• The project has taken the technology for sinking submarine outfalls to the limit, in what at present constitutes a world record in terms of both length and diameter: a 1,500 metre long and 3.80 metre wide pipeline made with reinforced concrete was constructed for each of the four tunnels built below the seabed, designed for discharge flows of up to 25,000 litres a second.
• Equally unique are the structures housing the catch pits. Circular in shape and reaching depths of more than 20 metres, these pits have been built using continuous reinforced concrete screens that, in sandy soils, reach depths of up to 32 metres and include reaction structures capable of supporting pressures of up to 3,000 tonnes.
• Impulso’s unique technical solutions, combined with the extraordinary scale of a plant covering more than 400,000 m2 of built space, 3,000 cultivation pools and 35 auxiliary buildings and processing facilities have resulted in one of Portugal’s largest engineering projects.

Impulso's contribution:

• Drafting and comprehensive management of engineering projects (including installation projects, health and safety study, health and safety coordination, assistance with contracting).
• Comprehensive management and direction of the construction work.
• Technical assistance with contracting.
• Health and Safety coordination.