Page 27 - bne_newspaper_April_5_2019

Weekly Lists
April 5, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 27
bne:
Infrastructure
45-hour operation to transfer flights from Ataturk Airport to Istanbul’s new mega airport set to start
Iran’s petroleum minister urges oil, gas companies to help tackle unprecedented floods, death toll hits at least 62
Romania prepares €1bn auction for 80 trains
A huge transfer operation in which over a period of just 45 hours flights and equipment will be switched from Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport to Turkey’s new mega airport outside the commercial capital on the Black Sea coast is to start on April 5.
The transfer to the new airport, named Istanbul Airport, was under original plans to have taken place at the turn of the year but, even as officials boasted that they planned to quickly make it the busiest airport in the world, it was patently clear construction and other project targets had fallen substantially behind schedule. Critics said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had conducted something of a ‘Potemkin village’ inauguration on last October’s Proclamation Day of Ataturk’s Republic. There was particular concern from human rights groups that dozens of workers had lost their lives in what they claimed were preventable accidents at the airport construction site and that an indeterminate, but seemingly high, number of people had been killed in accidents involving construction site trucks joining the Istanbul traffic.
Iran’s Petroleum Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh on April 3 urged local oil and gas companies to help provide aid to victims of the country’s unprecedented flooding, official energy news agency SHANA reported.
The death toll from the major floods stands at at least 62, with flash floods having swept across 26 of Iran’s 31 provinces during the Persian new year Nowruz holidays which began on March 19. Ahmad Shojaee, head of the Iranian Legal Medicine Organisation told semi-official Fars news agency the southern province of Fars had been hardest hit with 21 dead. Fourteen people had died in the western province of Lorestan and eight in the northern province of Golestan, he said.
The Romanian Railway Reform Authority (ARF) on April 3 launched a public tender for the purchase of 40 to 80 passenger trains and their maintenance over a period of 15 to 30 years, Economica.
net informed.
The estimated maximum value of the contract is RON4.56bn (nearly €1bn, not including VAT), or about €12mn per piece, including maintenance services over a period of 30 years, according to Economica.net. ARF indicates in its note an estimated value of RON1.7bn (€360mn) for the minimum package of 40 trains and 15-year maintenance - leading to a price per piece of €9mn.