News APB | Ports de Balears

The structural rehabilitation of the retaining wall on the access road to the lighthouse of Formentor goes out to tender

09/12/2021

The Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) has put out to tender the structural rehabilitation of the retaining wall on the access road to the Formentor lighthouse, which has been closed since September due to the risk of landslides. At that time there was a local break in the wall, on which the MA-2210 road is located. The material broke off in the form of a 6-metre wedge in the longitudinal axis of the road, up to 3 metres crosswise and 6 metres in height. In 2013, a similar episode occurred, so it is suspected that more earth could be dislodged in the future, thus considering it appropriate to carry out a comprehensive improvement of the safety of the wall to prevent accidents from happening. The work will last four months and has an initial budget of 628,239 euros. The deadline for receiving bids is 20 December 2021. Interested parties may submit their applications through theAPB's e-tendering portal. Reconstruction process The masonry work will be carried out using the traditional construction technique of "pedra en sec". In the first stage, it is planned to demolish both the existing road surface and the retaining wall in that section. Next, the excavation of the earth on the outer face of the wall and the dismantling of the existing construction will be carried out. The area of intervention will be limited to the space occupied by the existing road and the retaining wall, avoiding any impact on the flora and fauna located in the surrounding areas. In fact, the works are located in a protected environment and, therefore, all the indications of the Natural Habitats service of the Government of the Balearic Islands (GOIB) will be taken into account. Subsequently, the land will be levelled and work will begin on the wall, which is expected to be 52.5 metres long and up to 6 metres high.

Transport and infrastructure

The APB thanks Open House Palma for promoting its architectural heritage

22/11/2021

The Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) wanted to thank the Open House Palma Cultural Association for the initiative to promote the city's architectural heritage, enabling many citizens to visit the most prestigious buildings of the APB in Palma. Specifically, on Saturday 6 November, 287 people visited the APB's institutional headquarters, 166 went to the offices and 44 visited the Portopí lighthouse and the maritime signal exhibition. In fact, the institutional headquarters of the APB was the second most visited building on Saturday 6 November. With this in mind, the president and director of the APB, Francesc Antich and Jorge Nasarre, respectively, have awarded the representatives of Open House Palma, Biel Noguera, Laura Trias and Nuria Zuzama, with the commemorative plaque that is given to ships calling for the first time at Balearic ports. The president of the APB, Francesc Antich, highlighted the success of the event in terms of participation, and expressed his desire to repeat the experience in the next edition of the festival. Open House Palma Open House Palma is the largest architecture and open door festival in Palma. For one weekend a year, more than 70 buildings and spaces, usually closed or hidden from the public, are open to visitors free of charge, and all of them without exception are the best examples of architecture and design in Palma. The association is made up of different professionals with different profiles, including architecture, art history, cultural heritage management, design and communication.

Environment and CSR

The port of Eivissa hosts a marine pollution control exercise organised by Maritime Rescue

16/11/2021

The waters of the port of Eivissa were the scene of a new marine pollution control exercise by the Jovellanos Integral Maritime Safety Centre. The exercise was carried out in the midst of a supposed diesel oil spill, for which real-life anti-pollution barriers were deployed. Different units activated by the port of Eivissa, such as the pilots and the Port Police, took part in the exercise. Maritime Rescue The Jovellanos Integral Maritime Safety Centre, located in Gijón, is the Maritime Rescue training centre, whose objective is to provide comprehensive training in maritime, port and industrial safety, occupational risk prevention and pollution control. Its activity is primarily aimed at the personnel of the Rescue Society and professionals in the maritime sector, but also at groups with special needs in terms of safety and pollution control.

Environment and CSR Transport and infrastructure

Contracts awarded for the maintenance service for trees, palm trees, gardening and cliffs in the port of Maó

08/11/2021

The Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) has recently awarded the maintenance service contracts for trees, palm trees, gardening and cliffs in the port of Maó. UTE Podas Puerto Maó (Conrado-Urbient) will be in charge of maintaining the trees, palm trees, planters and smaller plants for 370,000 euros per year, while UTE Menorca Subvertical will be responsible for the correct maintenance of the many cliffs along the port, for 138,000 euros per year. The service will be staffed by 10 workers from groups at risk of social exclusion. At present, occasional maintenance work is being carried out, which has proved to be insufficient, therefore this contract will guarantee healthy and well-preserved species and green areas. The contracts cover preventive and corrective maintenance and waste management in accordance with the regulations in force. Emergency incidents, which compromise the safety of people, will also be addressed within 10 minutes for trees and landscaping and 14 minutes for cliffs, 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Non-urgent incidents will be resolved within 12 working hours. Scope of the service The actions include the entire APB management area, from the Naval Station to Cales Fonts, including the northern coastline as far as La Mola and the s'Hort d'en Murillo estate. Annual pruning, felling and stump removal for palm trees, elimination of shoots or branches that compromise people's safety, preventive phytosanitary treatments – such as red palm weevil treatment – as well as tree replacements, when required, will all be carried out. In terms of flower beds and smaller plants, the service includes the maintenance of grass lawns, irrigation nets, hedges and shrubs, as well as seasonal flower beds. Those responsible will be in charge of clearing and cleaning vegetation, fertilisation, mowing, regeneration, replacement of species and improvements and repair of faults in the irrigation system. Finally, the condition of the cliffs and anchorages will be reviewed and maintained, as well as the inventory of vegetation species living in the port. All this will be carried out by personnel specialising in rope access work.

Port-city Transport and infrastructure

The APB has begun the replacement of palm trees representing structural risks in the Port of Palma

26/10/2021

The replacement of 20 palm trees showing signs of structural risk has begun this week in the Port of Palma. the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) thus guarantees, as far as possible, their stability. Several types of operations will be carried out: the uprooting of an existing palm tree and its subsequent replanting with the repair of the pavement, if necessary. The improvement project has been awarded to the Parkinsonia company for a value of 47,168 euros and it is expected to last six months. Due to a study on the palm tree management of the port of Palma, the points requiring intervention were identified, that focused on the gardens of the Longa dock and the Poniente dock and the breakwater path. Within the area of the Port of Palma’s public domain, the APB is responsible for just over half a thousand palm trees: 282 date palms, 58 Canary Island palms and 179 Washington palms. There are also European fan palm and the Chusan palm spread over various green areas with trees and other plants that form the landscaped areas.

Port-city Transport and infrastructure

The light of the Tramuntana lighthouse on the island of Dragonera has been replaced

26/10/2021

Last week, the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) completed the work to replace the light in the Tramuntana lighthouse, located on the island of Dragonera. Completed by the Mediterranean company Señales Marítimas, this improvement had a cost of 73,000 euros. Prior to the installation of the new lantern, several preparation work was required, such as the reconstruction of the supporting wall and the installation of new anchor bolts for the lantern's lower ring. The new light can be visited. It is 2 meters in diameter, with a glass area of 1.35 in height and a lower plinth of 20 cm in height. The metal part of the old lantern was in poor condition, which had caused the whole assembly to tilt. To stop this process and maintain the equipment in position before its replacement, a series of fixings were placed between the lantern and the civil works supporting the tower. The new lantern was installed from the air, with the help of a helicopter and specialized personnel. Second lighthouse of Dragonera This is the second lighthouse built as a result of the shutdown of the old Na Pòpia lighthouse. It was inaugurated on the 15 of November in 1910. As this lighthouse did not require much light range, nitially it used a simple Maris lamp with a wick, and the lighthouse was maintained by a single lighthouse keeper. The original optics were retired in 1960 to make way for an automatic acetylene lighting system. The lighthouse has not had a permanent technician on site since 1961. The Llebeig lighthouse keepers were responsible for its maintenance. The retired optic was later installed in 1965 at the Portocolom lighthouse, where it is still in service.

Transport and infrastructure

Students of the 10th Master's Degree in Port Management and Planning choose Eivissa and Formentera for their annual meeting

18/10/2021

The ports of Eivissa and Formentera today, Friday 8 October, hosted the annual meeting of the 10th Master's Degree in Port Management and Planning and Intermodality of Puertos del Estado. The APB's delegate for the ports of Ibiza and Formentera, Ignacio Revilla, welcomed the participants and presented the ports of general interest of Eivissa and La Savina. The students themselves were able to get to know the ports in situ from land and from the sea. Alberto Camarero and José Manuel Montes then took stock of the activities carried out during the course, in the tenth edition, marked by the limitations imposed by the pandemic. Throughout the course, organised by the universities of Cadiz, A Coruña and Oviedo and by Puertos del Estado, the students carried out an in-depth study of the basic principles of planning, organisation and business management in the port area, with emphasis on aspects such as maritime transport and the role played by the ports within the logistics chain.

Environment and CSR

The APB begins the procedure for the sale of the Portixol terraces in the port of Palma to private individuals

18/10/2021

On 29 September of that same year, the Board of Directors of the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) approved in an ordinary session the proposal for the sale of 10 terraces to private owners of the adjoining dwellings in the Portixol area of the port of Palma. It so happens that many of the terraces of the houses in the area are the property of the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands, so this agreement establishes the conditions of sale of these spaces to the adjoining owners, as these are areas that are of no interest to the port. In the event that these neighbours wish to acquire them, they must pay the APB the market value calculated by an independent appraisal company, which amounts to €1,051 per square metre. If they are not interested in purchasing them, the APB reserves the right to process the transfer of use, which will require the user to pay a fee for occupation of APB property, or to request the removal of the boundary wall or fence. The total amount of the sale is about €452,526.00, for about 376 square metres. In June 2021, the affected parties were notified of the proposed sale, which was also agreed by the Board of Directors. Ten of them have already shown their firm intention to buy, some of them with an instalment payment plan.

Port-city

The presence of coal in the port of Alcúdia is reduced

27/09/2021

After years of decreasing traffic in the port of Alcúdia, in 2021 coal is no longer among the goods embarked and/or disembarked in the port. This confirms the trend to decarbonise energy production in the Balearic Islands, endorsed by the Balearic Islands Climate Change Law, which proposes that by 2050 all the energy produced in the archipelago should come from clean sources. Decarbonisation in the Balearic Islands is combined with the massive development of renewable and storage technologies to make the most of renewable generation and facilitate the introduction of technological innovations in the existing fleet and modernisation of older facilities. The port facilities are an example of this process, opting for non-emitting sources such as hydrogen in Maritime Station No. 4 of the port of Palma, which will become the first building of the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands with almost zero energy consumption. Progressive decline A gradual decline in coal imports through the port of Alcúdia has been registered in recent years. In 2018, the volume of goods exceeded one million tonnes, but in 2019, it fell to 718,378. The following year, it fell to 95,170 tonnes. In 2018 for example, 128 vessels were involved in this task, in comparison with 89 in 2019, and 11 in 2020. The lack of demand for coal in Mallorca is mainly associated with the progressive reconversion of the Es Murterar thermal power station in Alcúdia. At the end of 2019, coal-fired groups 1 and 2 - the oldest - stopped operating and the other two reduced their operation to 1,500 hours per year. In August 2021, a further step towards decarbonisation was taken, limiting the hours of operation to 500, which is equivalent to 20 days a year. Therefore, in two years coal has gone from generating 50% of electricity to less than 5%.

Environment and CSR Technology and innovation

The Trimak motor-tricycles: 40 years at the service of the lighthouses in Eivissa and Formentera

23/09/2021

At the beginning of the 70s, three Trimak motorcycle-type tricycles were delivered to the Pityuses to transport the acetylene gas accumulators used to power the lights of the Tagomago, Conillera and the recently opened Barbaría lighthouses. Although they continued to perform reasonably well, they were eventually replaced in 2013 by two new Piaggios, which means they had a useful life of more than 40 years. Equipped with a two-stroke LEW engine, pedal starter and open cargo box, they were fitted with mounted wooden supports that were fastened between crossbars screwed to the box to house four gas accumulators of about 50 kg each, and a bench, which was also made of wood and rested on the box to transport personnel. They were highly reliable vehicles, always used during the day, and neither their tyres nor batteries were ever replaced. The main enemy for their structure was the marine saltpetre, which is why it was common for their exhaust pipes to rust and snap, especially on the vehicles that served the Conillera and Tagomago lighthouses. In 1996, the lighthouses were converted to solar power, and from that moment on, they were only used to transport technicians and occasionally batteries and maintenance materials. Tagomago and Conillera Tagomago’s Trimak, which is still on the island today, was predominantly used to transport the accumulators from the pier to the lighthouse along what was then the only 1,200-metre paved road on the island. The situation was similar in Conillera. In more than 40 years of service, the vehicles only did 6,000 kilometres because the roads they travelled were only around a kilometre long. Formentera Another of the vehicles was assigned to the La Mola lighthouse to service the recently built Barbaría lighthouse. A garage was built to store it at La Mola, but the technicians in charge at the time, Antonio Ferrández and Jaime Ribas, found it wasn’t powerful enough to cope with the long climb up La Mola hill, so they chose to use their own vehicles for the service instead. Later, it was transferred to the port of Eivissa, stored in a warehouse and never used again. This probably explains why it’s the best-preserved of the three vehicles today.

Transport and infrastructure

The APB begins work to improve the security of the controlled area in the Port of Eivissa with new fencing and access gates

15/09/2021

Work to replace the access gates and fencing around the controlled area in the Port of Eivissa has begun and is expected to last for two months and cost 300,000 euros. The work has been awarded to the company ISLASFALTO and consists of replacing more than 800 m of high-security, 2.50-metre high fencing and four gates (two sliding and two revolving). The project aims to reinforce security for both users and workers by replacing the current enclosure, which has accumulated damage and vulnerabilities over time, with tamper-proof and hard-to-climb elements. The disassembly and removal will be carried out sequentially so as not to interfere with port operations.

Transport and infrastructure Port-city

The port of Eivissa reduces the consumption of its water supply system by 50%

06/09/2021

During the first half of 2021 the port of Eivissa reduced the consumption of its water supply system by 50% compared with the same period in 2020, saving the equivalent of 26,000 cubic metres of water. These are the first positive results of its RIM (Smart Measurement Network) system, which displays consumption in real time and minimises the losses caused by any potential incidents in the water supply network. This project forms part of the policy of improving the performance of the drinking water network established by the Balearic Islands Port Authority (APB), which started in 2016 with a pilot project in the port of Palma (Majorca). The RIM system measures remotely the consumption of water by operating concessions and nautical facilities, together with the supplying of water to ships, among other functions. Once a day the network collects the hourly values from the 61 meters and at the same time classifies the various different meters in terms of their use (APB own consumption, local users, nautical users, industrial users, cruise-ships and irrigation). The information thus provided is extremely useful when taking decisions about operational processes. Detecting leakages The aim of current investment is to achieve an efficient management system and to reduce water leakages in the Port of Eivissa’s water supply network. This is accompanied by the constant maintenance of the network, with urgent malfunctions being repaired in under two hours, and non-urgent problems being dealt with within two working days. In addition, the constant analysis of the network makes it possible to detect anomalies in the meter readings and potential excessive levels of consumption. In many cases, these irregularities are the result of leakages and breakdowns in the transport and distribution network, which are identified, located and repaired (if possible) as quickly as possible.

Environment and CSR Technology and innovation