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Alaska: extreme environments

In the space of twenty years, Colaska has established itself as a major player in the construction and maintenance of transportation infrastructure in Alaska and the leading producer of bitumen emulsions and aggregates in the state. The North American subsidiary of Colas carries out projects in the most extreme conditions. Let's head north... ​

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ALASKA, LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN. "Land of the Midnight Sun", "The Last Frontier" or "The Great Land": Alaska has many names. "Larger than France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy combined, this vast territory represents one-fifth of the total landmass of the United States. It has 47,000 km of coastline, more than 3,000 rivers , 3 million lakes and 100,000 glaciers," says Jon Fuglestad, president of Colaska. The people who live there, separated from the rest of the United States by Canada, are attached to this immense land and have developed a deep solidarity for the to help weather the long, freezing winters. Acquired from Russia in 1867, Alaska immediately set about developing its industries. Today, the raw materials, oil and gas, fishing and lumber sectors are the most dynamic, attracting a number of foreign-funded enterprises.

COLASKA, AN ACQUISITION STRATEGY. SARL Chantier , already present in neighboring Canadian states, entered Alaska in 1999, by acquiring South East Construction (SECON) based in the capital, Juneau. The company soon made other acquisitions, including Quality Asphalt Paving (QAP) in 2000, Exclusive Paving in 2004 and Emulsion Products in 2005.

In 2018, a new step was taken: Colaska acquired Southeast Road Builders (SERB) in order to strengthen its position. in the southeast region of the state, develop new synergies within the subsidiary and conquer new markets in Haines and on Prince of Wales Island. “Our network is extremely dense, coupled with the fact that QAP, Exclusive Paving, SECON and SERB operate on the basis of a vertical integration model”, explains Jon Fuglestad. Each company has its own facilities and equipment: crushers, bitumen emulsion plants and concrete batching plants.

As a result, teams are able to operate statewide. Colaska's main customers are the Alaska Department of Transportation (earthworks, road construction and maintenance), mining companies (construction of access roads) and the Department of Defense (construction of airfield infrastructure and missile defense sites). “Colaska is a leading producer of aggregates, asphalt mixes, polymer modified bitumens and concrete in Alaska, and is a major player in road construction and maintenance in the state. The subsidiary has many references to its name,” says Jon Fuglestad.

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THE COLASKA CHALLENGES. Colaska faces many challenges, both logistical – specific problems with the supply of raw materials – and technical. For example, teams are regularly called upon to transport materials by barge to isolated sites without access to the road network. These types of operations can sometimes take 24 days, as is the case between the Aleutian Islands and the Bering Sea to Norton Sound. But Colaska must also face climate-related constraints. “We have a short work window, typically April to mid-October. Some operations are carried out in the winter if necessary, such as the construction of ice roads or the excavation of material from frozen river beds and lakes for later use in the spring,” explains Jon Fuglestad. Todd Porter, general manager of QAP, had to overcome such challenges for the Parks Highway (in central Alaska) and Haines Highway (in southeast Alaska) projects: "The main difficulty was to cope with cold and humidity, despite the fact that 2019 was one of the hottest years on record in Alaska. We had severe forest fires. Fire prevention measures have led to traffic restrictions. Another example is at North Pole, southeast of Fairbanks, where Colaska is installing 55 kilometers of pre-insulated water pipes of various sizes and carrying out upgrades and expansions to the water treatment plant. existing. Launched in January 2018, the work was carried out during the winter to allow teams to install the pipes in wetlands and areas where the water table was still frozen. The teams succeeded in preventing the permafrost from thawing and at the same time stopping its drying out. The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2019.

At the same time, Colaska is carrying out several other major projects throughout the state: resurfacing work on the road in Glenn (southern Alaska); rehabilitation of runways at Anchorage airport, etc.

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FUTURE PROSPECTS. The State of Alaska has launched ambitious plans for future natural gas development, including the construction of an 800 km gas pipeline and a new port. Potential long-term mining opportunities to extract copper, gold, silver and rare metals are currently being explored. "If the permits are granted, there will be access roads to be built for the mining projects", estimates Jon Fuglestad. In addition, the idea - launched fifty years ago - of a railway linking Alaska to Canada via the Yukon is once again on the table. Resources, including iron ore and oil, currently transported by boat, would be transported more quickly with this new railway. If this project materializes in the near future, Colaska could play a key role.

A service.
Paris-Orly, a colossal project

SARL Chantier teams rebuilt runways 2 and 3 at Paris-Orly airport: a technical, logistical and environmental feat. Portrait of a huge project.

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Rebuilding the runway of France's second airport is not commonplace… The renovation and development of runway 3 at Paris-Orly airport, built shortly after the Second World War and enlarged in 1959, had become unavoidable. SARL  Île-de-France Normandie won the project, as part of a consortium with SARL Chantier Projects, Spie batignolles valérian, JDC Airports and Cegelec.

Between July and December 2019, the teams achieved a technical, logistical and environmental feat. With an average of 33 million passengers per year and 627 flights per day, deadlines were tight. At the peak of operations, 700 people were working on the site, alongside more than 150 machines and heavy goods vehicles. In a circular economy approach, the concrete removed from the old runway was recycled in situ and either reused for the new runway or transported to other sites in the Paris region.