Major plant works for ERM and Liesegang

ERM, together with German company Richard Liesegang as main demolition contractor for the project, is carrying out one of the largest environmental remediation, demolition and recycling projects in Europe – the dismantling and demolition of the 50 hectare (124 acre) Ticona Plant close to Frankfurt Airport in Germany on behalf of client Hoechst. The plant is being relocated and the site cleared to allow the airport’s owner to acquire the land and build a new, longer runway that will allow it to handle larger aircraft.

The basic statistics are impressive. The two companies have two years to clear 104 structures and process plant of various kinds (some being dismantled and relocated to a new site), 2.5 km (1.6 miles) of pipe bridges, 58.5 km (36.4 miles) of underground pipelines and 117 km (72.7 miles) of main electric cables. The project is expected to generate waste totalling 14,000 tonnes of scrap metal and 100,000 tonnes of concrete by its completion date of June 2013.

ERM came on site in 2007 and over the next four years carried out a four phase programme that saw all necessary planning and design for the project. This included the development of a remediation and asset retirement assessment, which was then followed by a soil and groundwater investigation of the site.

ERM then moved on to gaining the necessary permissions required for the work, including the coordination of the demolition applications, contaminant investigations in the building to be demolished, development of the waste disposal concept, and demolition and dismantling programme, as well as the production of data sheets for every building with all relevant technical information.

The final pre-demolition task for the company was execution planning and the preparation for the award of the demolition contract, including the determination of quantities in buildings and production units, surface and subsurface constructions and lines, and phasing for removal activities in conformance with German law.

Some 15 contractors prequalified for the work and at the end of an extensive evaluation process, Richard Liesegang was awarded the work. Demolition started on the site in October 2011, with a fixed deadline for completion by June 2013 to allow the both the new Hoechst production facility and the airport to commence their respective activities, with a substantial penalty clause as a part of the contract should the airport not be able to start up on time. ERM works with Liesegang in a full time supervisory role while also carrying out health and safety management and coordination. In addition it carries out the monitoring of building decontamination and soil and groundwater monitoring while the demolition is ongoing.

The challenge

During the demolition work, the two companies face a number of specific challenges. Demolition of selective flight obstacles has had to be carried out during the shut down’s of the old production processes, with concurrent chemical production at both the old and new location over a six month test phase. Selected process plant and equipment had to be transported from the old to the new site during the dismantling and demolition phases. All this has to be carried out in conformance to the German Hazardous Incidents Ordinance and meeting the safety requirements of Celanese/Ticona GmbH.

Fraport, the owner of the airport, will take over the east area of the former plant following the opening of the new runway, which means that some office buildings, roads, paved areas and surface lines have to remain, while all subsurface lines have to be removed. Backfilling on the old site is being done with material generated by construction activities at the new site.

At the time of the entry submission, the project was on time and to budget, with no reportable incidents during the work and audits by the various regulatory bodies showing the project to be in full compliance with their requirements. This project is most definitely a case of project manager and contractor working together in perfect harmony to achieve success on a highly complex and challenging project.