Industrial gas specialists Messer award €3.4m building contracts in Siegen

In June 2008, industrial gas specialists Messer awarded building contracts worth 3.4 million euros to companies in the Siegen area of North Rhine-Westphalia. This huge order volume is in connection with the construction of a new production facility for extracting gases from the atmosphere at the Deutsche Edelstahlwerke site in Siegen-Geisweid. Messer is investing 35 million euros in an air separation plant which is due to start producing oxygen, nitrogen and argon in autumn 2009. Between July 2008 and May 2009, a team of up to 35 highly skilled personnel from building companies based in the Siegen area will be working hard on the project, from initial excavations right through to the completion of the control room and machine hall. During the next eleven months, more than 5,500 cubic metres of concrete, 1,200 square metres of brickwork and 570 tonnes of steel will be going into place. “We regard it as very important to make a contribution to the long-term economic development of the Siegen region,” says Peter Schulte, Head of Sales and Distribution at Messer Industriegase GmbH, from his office at the Siegen Sales Centre in Kaan-Marienborn. It took eight weeks to work out a comprehensive scheme of safety arrangements for the building site. Between now and mid-August, almost 200 steel piles will be driven into the ground to form the foundations on which will stand the central element of the industrial gases plant – the 60-metre-tall ‘coldbox’. The topping-out ceremony for the air separation plant is due to take place in November 2008 and customers should start receiving first supplies in October 2009. Planning permission for the production of industrial gases at the new plant has already been granted in line with the Federal Immission Control Act (BImSchG). These regulations were drawn up to protect the environment from harmful effects such as noise pollution.