ADAMA HOSPITAL

Universal Consultants clinches Bank of Abyssinia HQ design project


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Universal Consultants Plc, the company which a year ago won the contract for designing the headquarters of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) by teaming up with a German architectural firm, has won another similar contract to design the future headquarters of the Bank of Abyssinia (BoA).

The committee assigned to oversee the bid for designing the future headquarters of BoA last Saturday announced Universal Consultants as the winner while it ranked Oadus Architectural Plc and Zias Design International plc in the second and third place, respectively.

Of some 52 local architectural firms that applied to participate in the bid, the committee short listed 48 companies, of which only 21 submitted proposals. Subsequently, the committee disqualified one of the bidders, and it took a couple of months to finally pick up the winner.

Universal Consultants presented an upright 28-story structure design which won the first award, 120,000 birr and the design project while the second and third rankers got 80,000 and 50,000 birr awards, respectively.

The future headquarters of BoA, which will be an over 20-storey structure, is projected to cost 300 million birr, according to the term of reference document.

However, the estimate by industry experts puts the cost of the project at around 500 million birr.
Universal Consults and BoA will now negotiate on the detail workouts of the project before preparing the tender document for the construction of the building.

Universal Consultants is presently negotiating with CBE on the technical and financial proposals for the detailed design work of CBE’s future headquarters projects, according to Destalem Haileselassie, manager of Universal Consultants

Lideta Mekato Center
The roof contains gathering and recreational areas, a new urban oasis protected from the rain and the sun. The circular porches and the roof collect the water from the rain to be processed and reused for sanitation. The porches also hold a network of photovoltaic panels that produce and store electrical energy for the interior and illuminate up the façade at night.

The new market is located in an area currently under development in Addis Ababa. The surrounding buildings under construction define a very dense neighborhood based on middle rise residential buildings and a car-based street system. The project is a simple volume that is carved to create an interior world in a multistory contemporary building based on the traditional market principles. The diagonal void connects the two parallel streets and intersects the inclined atrium where the entrance and connections through the levels occur.

Architects: XV Studio
Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Director: Xavier Vilalta
Project Leader: Maria Rosaria Favoino
Project Team: Joao Medeiros, Miguel Sánchez Enkerlin, Reema Al-Ajlan, Daniel Vaczi
Structural : Abraham Yeibey
Mechanical & Sanitary : Abiy Aberra
Project Manager: Kefale Kassa
Client: Flintstone Engineering
Surface: 14.200 m2

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Zangeshan cement factory 80% completed.

The Zangeshan Cement Factory, with a projected daily production capacity of 5,000 tn, is set to inaugurate its initial trial production in three months.

A total of 80pc of the construction has been completed and only finishing and installation works remain, according to Alem Desta, deputy Manager of investment projects in Ethiopia for Guangdong Chuahui Group, the factory’s parent company. It has been equipped with the latest technologies and the domestic market will be the primary focus, he claimed.

The government plans to increase the national road network from the existing 49,000 Km to 139,000 km and construct additional housing units to raise their number from 213,000 to 700,000, as part of the five year GTP. These projects are estimated to increase the annual demand for cement to 27 million tones by 2015.
Zangeshan, which was established without external financing, is awaiting the Ethiopian Conformity Assessment Enterprise’s (ECAE) assessment of the quality of its products before it can be introduced into the market.

The environmental impact assessment (EIA) study is also underway, according to Alem.

To overcome power supply outages, the factory’s generator can generate 8MW, more than 50pc of the 15 MW, power supply it will need at its full operational capacity, Alem told fortune. Upon becoming fully operational, the factory is expected to create over 1,200 jobs, the deputy manager claimed.

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Zangeshan cement factory 80% comleted.

The Zangeshan Cement Factory, with a projected daily production capacity of 5,000 tn, is set to inaugurate its initial trial production in three months.

A total of 80pc of the construction has been completed and only finishing and installation works remain, according to Alem Desta, deputy Manager of investment projects in Ethiopia for Guangdong Chuahui Group, the factory’s parent company. It has been equipped with the latest technologies and the domestic market will be the primary focus, he claimed.

The government plans to increase the national road network from the existing 49,000 Km to 139,000 km and construct additional housing units to raise their number from 213,000 to 700,000, as part of the five year GTP. These projects are estimated to increase the annual demand for cement to 27 million tones by 2015.
Zangeshan, which was established without external financing, is awaiting the Ethiopian Conformity Assessment Enterprise’s (ECAE) assessment of the quality of its products before it can be introduced into the market.

The environmental impact assessment (EIA) study is also underway, according to Alem.

To overcome power supply outages, the factory’s generator can generate 8MW, more than 50pc of the 15 MW, power supply it will need at its full operational capacity, Alem told fortune. Upon becoming fully operational, the factory is expected to create over 1,200 jobs, the deputy manager claimed.

Is it true that Alamudin is constructing a new cement facory?

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Zangeshan cement factory 80% comleted.

The Zangeshan Cement Factory, with a projected daily production capacity of 5,000 tn, is set to inaugurate its initial trial production in three months.

A total of 80pc of the construction has been completed and only finishing and installation works remain, according to Alem Desta, deputy Manager of investment projects in Ethiopia for Guangdong Chuahui Group, the factory’s parent company. It has been equipped with the latest technologies and the domestic market will be the primary focus, he claimed.

The government plans to increase the national road network from the existing 49,000 Km to 139,000 km and construct additional housing units to raise their number from 213,000 to 700,000, as part of the five year GTP. These projects are estimated to increase the annual demand for cement to 27 million tones by 2015.
Zangeshan, which was established without external financing, is awaiting the Ethiopian Conformity Assessment Enterprise’s (ECAE) assessment of the quality of its products before it can be introduced into the market.

The environmental impact assessment (EIA) study is also underway, according to Alem.

To overcome power supply outages, the factory’s generator can generate 8MW, more than 50pc of the 15 MW, power supply it will need at its full operational capacity, Alem told fortune. Upon becoming fully operational, the factory is expected to create over 1,200 jobs, the deputy manager claimed.

Is it true that Alamudin is constructing a new cement facory?

This report on ETV is the last one that I have have seen on Alamoudi's involvement in the cement industry. If I come across any new information, I will post it on this thread. Watch the following presentation on ethiotube.

http://www.ethiotube.net/video/4704/ETV ... ar-Sululta

Ethiopia Plans to Start Exporting Power to Djibouti This Month

By William Davison - May 6, 2011 5:56 AM CT

Ethiopia expects to begin exporting electricity to Djibouti this month after completing a project connecting its power grid to the neighboring country, an Ethiopian Electric Power Corp. official said.

The link, completed in November, is in the final testing and commissioning stage, Alemayehu Wubeshet, head of transmission lines and sub-station construction at the state- owned utility, said in an interview in Addis Ababa on May 4. The project forms part of a program to link nine regional countries to a single electricity grid by 2016.

“We are planning by the end of May we will send power” to Djibouti, Alemayehu said. The line will enable Ethiopia to supply as much as 30 megawatts of electricity, he said.

Ethiopia plans to produce as much as 8,000 megawatts of additional electricity, mainly from hydropower sources, over the next five years, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on April 30. Construction of a $4.76 billion, 5,250-megawatt project near the Sudanese border was announced on April 2 by Meles. The Horn of Africa country’s hydropower potential of 45,000 megawatts is second only to the Democratic Republic of Congo on the continent, according to the World Bank.

Ethiopian hydropower will generate the bulk of electricity that will be traded among nine countries that are expected to connect to a regional grid by 2016, said Jasper Oduor, executive secretary of the Eastern Africa Power Pool, or EAPP.

“The good thing is the whole area can get cheap power and Ethiopia can get revenue,” he said in an e-mailed response to questions on May 4. “It’s a shared benefit situation.”

Integration
The EAPP, based in Addis Ababa, will coordinate the development of the regional power market, including determining how to set tariffs, overseeing integration and regulating the market that will begin trading in 2013, Oduor said.

Ethiopia has occasional outages even after three hydropower plants came online in the past two years.

“At this time we don’t have any power shortages,” Alemayehu said. “It’s not a systemic or planning problem. Sometimes it’s technical, sometime it’s damage.”

The African Development Bank funded the link between Ethiopia and Djibouti and will also advance funds for a double circuit 230-kilovolt line that will triple the transmission capacity to eastern Ethiopia and Djibouti, according to Alemayehu.

A connection to Sudan may be completed this year, said Raihan Elahi, the World Bank’s senior energy specialist in Ethiopia. The Washington-based lender provided about $45 million for the project that began in 2007, he said in a phone interview from the capital on May 4. There is an agreement Ethiopia has to deliver 100 megawatts to the neighboring country and the amount may rise to 200 megawatts, Elahi said.

“The major objective it to monetize Ethiopia’s hydropower potential,” Elahi said. “It considers itself the water tower of Africa and it can’t use it all by itself. It will be opening up a new window by earning foreign exchange from hydropower.”

Samsung clinches multi-million birr Airport project

. Set to establish electronic academy in Ethiopia


Quote:
The Ethiopian Airports Enterprise (EAE) has selected Samsung—the South Korean electronics goods and gadgets manufacturer—to install videos at the interior walls of the recently built passenger terminal at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport.

The multi-million birr project is aimed at providing the airport with a state-of-the-art facility to greet its customers and announce flight statements as modern terminals around the globe do, according to George Ferreira, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Samsung Electronics for Africa.

Samsung, which secured the project award recently, is in the meantime in under preparations to establish an electronic engineering academy in Addis Ababa, the COO told journalists from east Africa during a Q and A session at the Samsung Conference 2011 held in Nairobi this week.

“We have been conducting feasibility studies to identify some African countries we shall establish electronics academies,” Ferreira said. “Ethiopia will be one of the few countries where will establish an electronics engineering academy.”“If all goes according plan,” the COO said, “we might probably launch the project next year.”

According to Ferreira, Samsung envisioned to produce 10,000 electronics engineers from Africa in the coming five years, who are expected to take care of Samsung’s production operations in Africa.

Samsung is geared forward to producing electronic goods and gadgets (including TVs, mobile phones and related products) tailored for Africa as the theme of Samsung Conference 2011 goes: Built in Africa, for Africa, by Africa.

Samsung representatives for Africa have introduced scores of high tech electronics goods and gadgets some of which employ the latest Nano Technology.

Derba Midroc Wants 50MW for Factory
New cement factory plans to eventually attain daily production capacity of 60,000tn


Derba Midroc Cement Factory announced that it is coming closer to starting cement production with its revised production launch date slated for the end of June 2011.

The 351 million dollar factory, located 70km outside the capital in Sululta Town of North Shoa Zone, Oromia Regional State, is to start operation with an initial daily production of 1,800tn of cement by the end of June 2011, according to Haile Assegdie, CEO of Derba Midroc Cement Factory.

However, to do so, it is critical for the factory to be provided with a 50MW(thats 1/20th of the power which the country generates right now) power supply from the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo), according to Haile.

The production is to steadily progress to its full capacity of 60,000tn daily,(6000 tons???? ) according to the CEO.

“One of the major problems we have been facing is in obtaining electricity,” Haile told Fortune. “We requested the electricity supply four years ago, but we have been met with only delays by the EEPCo. We have already delayed unnecessarily while we must test the motors and we have not done that.”

To speed up delivery of this, Derba Midroc had constructed a substation at the factory and installed a 132KV transmission connecting it to the factory, for which the EEPCo was consulted at a cost of 12.8 million Br.

The factory also needs a 150tn-capacity crane to put the tops on the burners of the factory, Haile said.

“We have had a series of problems in acquiring the land, building roads, establishing a water supply, obtaining permits to import raw materials for the construction, and it seems as if we had come to the end of the tunnel,” Haile told a visiting group of government officials.

They included Demeke Mekonen, minister of education (MoE); Shitaye Minale, deputy speaker of Parliament; Tefera Walwa, former minister of Capacity Building (MoCB); Bedru Kemal, former president of the Supreme Court; and Zenebu Tadesse, minister of Women, Youth, and Children’s Affairs (MoWYC); during a tour of the site on Sunday, May 8, 2011.

Haile tried to impress the factory’s need for electricity upon the high-level government officials. Derba Midroc could be a key player in supplying badly needed cement and to help stabilise local cement prices, he claimed.

“The potential business plan of the factory is to supply cement to big government projects, particularly for dam constructions,” said Nebiyu Samuel, senior advisor and special assistant to Mohammed Al-Amoudi. “Our other projects would be ones like the Saudi Star irrigation canal and for the private sector.”

EEPCo has not signed any agreement with Derba Midroc for the supply of electricity but once a formal request is made and depending on the available power, the corporation will have no problem in discharging the services to the factory, according to Addis Tagele, deputy head of corporate communications at EEPC0.

“There might be ongoing discussions with EEPCo at many levels,” Addis told Fortune. “We are not saying that there will be no support, but it depends on the commissioning of the power station and the transmission lines. Once that has been completed, we will see how much energy we can give them to run the factory.”

Derba Midroc has contracted China National Building Materials (CNBM) for the engineering, procurement, and commissioning (EPC) of the project for 200 million dollars. CNBM will also be in charge of operating the factory and training the employees for one year after production starts.

The factory has an agreement with Volvo for the purchase of 1,000 trucks for the transportation of its cement.
It expects that up to 980 trucks could come to the factory daily to pick up and deliver its products, according to Haile.

Samsung to open engineering academy

Monday, 16 May 2011 13:50

Samsung is opening a state-of-the-art engineering institution that aims to produce more than 10,000 electronic engineers by the end of 2015. George Ferreira Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Samsung Electronics Africa told Capital that his company is currently carrying out a feasibility study to realize the institution which will be the second such educational facility in Africa next to the one in South Africa.The C.O.O. said this will be a fully equipped school with the latest technological appliances and every student will be provided with the most sophisticated gadgets to help them undertake their studies easily.
The institution says they will select students from schools all over the country for further training.
“We nominated and took students from grade 10 -12 and brought them to the academy to join the electronic world,” he added. The C.O.O. further added that “in the engineering academy we will have first class equipment and lecturers.”
According to Ferreira, the project will begin by next year and Samsung is planning to make the institution a world class academy. The company will use an initial investment of 1.5 million dollars for the first phase of the academy.
George also said “we will continue to invest in Ethiopia because we believe it has got a lot of potential to give both for Africa, East Africa and Samsung”
Meanwhile, the second annual Samsung Africa Forum 2011 took place at the Kenya International Convention Centre from 11 – 15 May 2011. The event is driven by the strategic need for technology investment and infiltration into Africa - to bridge the digital divide - the Samsung Africa Forum is a platform to demonstrate Samsung’s strategy into African investment, as well as to showcase over 500 line items of new products and key technology innovations that the company has to offer across the African continent.
Kwang Kee Park, President of Samsung Africa said during the opening of the forum that “Foreign direct investment has traditionally been one of the main channels of technology transfer into Africa, exceeding 800 percent between 2000 and 2008 where in fact, this investment equates about one percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s total GDP in 2008, estimated by the World Bank to be about $987 billion dollars. This is a clear indication that Africa is fast becoming a market rife with opportunity, where Samsung believes we have the ability to drive a solid market uptake of leading technologies, in the aim of increasing African economies through communications.”
This year’s Africa Forum has again demonstrated a strong investment into the African continent, not only from a monetary perspective, but more importantly, through the delivery of best practice advisory to a large number of leading African businessmen.
“Furthermore, if we consider the fact that 13 African countries already have a higher per capita GDP than China and 22 higher than India, there is no doubt that this continent – filled with affluent, competent individuals - is on the brink of a technology adoption revolution and as a result, Samsung is ensuring that we are at the forefront of technology provision and education across Africa, providing products “Built for Africa” and increasing economic growth as a result,” KK Park concludes.
During the forum Samsung introduced cutting edge technologies that have been considered as a myth including solar powered laptops with higher capacity processors than the conventional electric power consuming laptops. Moreover Samsung also showcased the world’s biggest LED television that measures 75 inches which is almost borderless.


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