Romanian steel used for building longest bridge in Turkey
Romanian steelmaker ArcelorMittal Galati has supplied 34,000 tons of steel plates for the building of the longest bridge in Turkey, Osman Gazi, which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated on June 30.
“This project had a special significance for us due to its amplitude,” said Bruno Ribo, ArcelorMittal Galati CEO. He added that the steel plates delivered for the Osman Gazi bridge required tailor made technical and commercial solutions.
The Osman Gazi bridge is 2.7 kilometers long and has a span of 1,550 meters between its main pillars. This makes it the longest suspension bridge in Turkey, second-longest in Europe, and fourth-longest in the world.
The bridge crosses the Izmit Bay in north-western Turkey and reduces the road distance between the capital Istanbul and the city-port of Izmir by 140 kilometers. The bridge is part of a 433-kilometer highway project that connects Istanbul to Izmir, which has been estimated at USD 9 billion. Once this highway is completed, a drive from Istanbul to Izmir will take 3 and a half hours, down from 6 and a half hours before the project was started.
The bridge itself has a cost of about USD 1 billion and was privately financed by a joint venture made of Turkish companies Nurol, Özaltın, Makyol, Yüksel, and Gocay, and Italian construction company Astaldi. They will operate the bridge for 23 years and get the toll revenues.
Japanese contractor IHI Infrastructure System Co. coordinated the bridge engineering, procurement, and construction while Danish engineering design firm COWI A/S did the design. Turkish group Cimtas made the bridge pillars and the suspension elements.
ArcelorMittal Galati is the biggest steelmaker in Romania. The company is part of international group ArcelorMittal, which bought it from the Romanian state in 2001. ArcelorMittal Galati had a turnover of 856 million in 2015, up by 7% compared to 2014, and EUR 67 million in losses. The company had close to 6,400 employees.
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