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FCC
ptakes part in events to celebrate
expansion of
Panama Canal
FCC took part in the events
organized by the
Republic of Panama to
mark the inauguration of
the new navigation
section of the Panama
Canal. The Citizen Services
Group was responsible
for the PAC 4 project to
expand the Panama Canal.
The President of the Republic, Juan Car-
los Varela, accompanied by the Minister of
Canal Affairs, Roberto Roy, the CEO of the
Panama Canal, Jorge Luis Quijano, repre-
sentatives from more than 60 delegations
from all over the world and thousands of
Panamanians witnessed the passage of
the first New Panamax ship, “Cosco Ship-
ping Panamá”, of Chinese origin, with a
load of 9,400 containers.
Representing FCC at the inaugura-
tion ceremony were the director of FCC
Construcción in Central America, Manuel
Antonio Olivares, the manager of Civil En-
gineering of FCC Construcción in Panama
José Manuel Garrido, and the manager of
the Pacific Access Channel (PAC-4) pro-
ject, Jesús Martínez, who attended on be-
half of the consortium in charge of under-
taking the project, led by FCC, along with
the Mexican company ICA and the Cost
Rican company MECO.
The largest infrastructure project in
this century
FCC joined the celebration of the largest infrastructure project of this century and is
proud to have contributed, with its skill and experience, in achieving this milestone of
global importance.
This project started on 22 January 2010 and was delivered to the Panama Canal
Authority on 20 December 2015.
The PAC-4 project, which formed part of
the work on the Panama Canal Expan-
sion, consisted of the excavation of a new
channel in the Panama Canal with the aim
of linking the new locks with the so-called
Corte Culebra, the narrowest stretch of the
waterway, with a length of 12.6 km, close
to the Canal’s Pacific access.
According to Manuel Antonio Olivares,
director of FCC Construcción in Central
America, the construction of the 3.7 ki-
lometre channel approaching the Pacific
locks, with a width of 200 metres, invol-
ved “a technical challenge of the highest
magnitude”.
The PAC-4 also included the construction
of a 2.4 km-long dam from loose materials,
the excavation, transportation and dum-
ping of some 27 million cubic metres of
material, mainly rocky, as well as the com-
pletion of the access routes and bypass
channels for water drainage, the creation
of reservoirs and clearing approximately
80 hectares of waste material area.