News

The B.Robots Team of the “Höhere technische Bundeslehr- und Versuchsanstalt Graz-Gösting” (Austria) landed the vice world champion title in the robotics competition of the First Lego League (FLL) World Festival, held in Detroit from April 25th to 29th, 2019, by introducing its smart “dPro Bottle”. So far, no other Austrian team has succeeded in winning this title.

In addition, B.Robots took fifth place in the Robot Game in a field of 104 teams. This year more than 35,000 teams from around the word entered the FLL competition.

ILF congratulates the project team on this remarkable achievement and is proud of having been able to make a small contribution to this success.

To make the public more aware of the contribution traveling by rail makes to protecting our environment and reducing our carbon footprint, the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) launched the Green Points initiative over two years ago.

As part of this initiative, people who use the ÖBB for business trips can collect green points, which are used to support specific environmental projects. By using the train for business trips, employees from ILF in Austria have cut down their CO2 emissions by 63.1 tons in the last year, being once again amongst some of the most frequent rail travelers in Austria. Compared to the previous year, this is a 17.5% increase in the number of train journeys.

ILF highly appreciates this ÖBB initiative, as the sustainable protection of the environment is of utmost importance to our company both when designing structures and facilities and when performing day-to-day project work. We strive to continue making a valuable contribution to ensuring sustainability in Austria by using ÖBB trains for business trips in years to come.

Another significant milestone for ILF in Georgia! Inspired by the “One ILF” principle, ILF-AUT, ILF-SUI and ILF-GEO combined their forces to beat the odds and win the contract for a pivotal project for the Tbilisi Suburban Rail Development.

The new project is definitely a landmark initiative in municipal rail transportation. It connects the eastern outskirts of Tbilisi, and the airport, with the city, which will greatly contribute to mobility within the capital of Georgia.

The key project-related data are as follows:

• award of contract: May 7, 2019
• project duration: 15 months
• contract value: EUR 3,500,000
• scope of services:

a. pre-feasibility study of the sections: a) Samgori–Airport–Lilo and b) Samgori–Rustavi
b. detailed design of Samgori–Airport–Lilo rail connection and supplementary infrastructure
c. assistance with IFIs
d. preparation of tender documents

The project comprises the design of a 13km-long railway alignment, railway superstructure, of civil construction, station buildings, electrification, signalling, control and communication systems, and of maintenance facilities.

It combines the re-activation of existing lines with some new alignments, following a resource-friendly approach.

The civil works are intended to be executed in accordance with the FIDIC Red Book, while the railway systems will fall under the FIDIC Yellow Book Conditions of Contract.

On May 14, 2019, “Die Presse” once again honoured successful Austrian family businesses and their achievements at a large gala event, held in Vienna for the 19th time. Herwig Langanger (“Presse” Chairman of the Executive Board), Margarete Schramböck (Austrian Minister of Economy and Digitilisation) and Georg Knill (Knill Gruppe in Weiz) commended the winning companies in front of around 200 guests from the business world.

We are happy to announce, that despite strong competition from a variety of different companies, ILF Consulting Engineers has been declared the Tyrolean winner.

More information and the full article about ILF can be found at:  https://diepresse.com/unternehmen/familienunternehmen/5627993/span-classpackageicon

During the 2019 Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue, which was hosted and supported by the German Federal Government, the German Association of Consulting Engineers (VBI) published its Guide to Renewable Energy with various contributions from ILF Consulting Engineers.

The Guide to Renewable Energy shall provide policymakers, administrators and engineers with lessons from the German experience of the energy transition and shows a broad range of technologies that are suitable and vital for an energy transition. ILF is proud to have contributed to this important and seminal handbook with its experience in areas such as project setup & implementation, routing, bankable feasibility studies, hydroelectric power, gas networks, energy & gas storage as well as power transmission.

For further information please feel free to contact us at info.muc@ilf.com.  You can also find the VBI Guide to Renewable Energy here.

On April 25, 2019 The Ministry of Construction, Housing, Municipalities and Public Works of Iraq awarded ILF with the Project Development, Engineering and Site Supervision Services for the water supply project in the Basra Governorate.

The project includes a Seawater Reverse Osmosis Desalination Facility, the Water Transmission System to supply 11 cities including Basra City with additional drinking water and a power plant to provide the required electricity to operate the system.

The project is envisaged to be executed based on ILF’s proposed concept:

• 1,000,000 m3/day Seawater Reverse Osmosis Desalination Facility located at the Arabian Gulf in Fao;
• Approximately 270 km of Water Transmission Pipelines for the distribution of the desalinated water to the cities of the Basra Governorate;
• A Gas fired Power Plant to produce the required power for the Desalination Plant and Pumping Stations.

The project will be the first step of Iraq’s new water strategy and shall deliver additional drinking water within 4 years.

Television: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C64GUiNur8Q&fbclid=IwAR1lbm8stUdrg7CKgdJTv_wK_TfQ1ctP9DWmaV6rDhjyEZYU5nWaLWYem2E
Newspaper: https://www.almirbad.com/detail/11797
Social Media: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2331580963779434&id=1733314656939404&__tn__=%2As%2As-R

ILF will take part in the “International Trade Fair for Alpine Technologies” (Interalpin) held in Innsbruck from May 08 to 10, 2019.

You are most welcome to visit us at stand A04 in exhibition hall A (hall 1, Innsbruck Exhibition Centre – Austria) to learn about our competence and experience. Come and discuss with us how we can support your projects in the field of ski resort planning.

We are looking forward to your visit and to interesting questions and discussions. For further information, please visit the website at http://www.interalpin.at/.

ILF Consulting Engineers, which acts as the leader of the consortium ArgeSL 2019, and has already been involved in various stages of the SuedLink project, has now also been awarded the contract for the next phase of the SuedLink project, by TenneT and TransnetBW (Germany). Over the next 20 months, ArgeSL 2019, consisting of ILF and its partners Froelich & Sporbeck, as well as GfN, will be performing the services involved in the project phases §19+§20 NABEG, which involve, amongst others, the applications for planning approval, including rough routing, the technical planning as well as project management and environmental planning.

The SuedLink shall transport energy generated in wind parks in northern Germany to southern Germany, thereby serving major consumers in southern Germany via a HVDC underground cable. The SuedLink consists of two point-to-point connections, which will each have a transmission capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW), i.e. a total capacity of 4 GW. This capacity, which is roughly equivalent to the capacity of four nuclear power plants, will supply around 10 million households with electricity. As Germany’s largest infrastructure project to date, the SuedLink project sets new international standards, being the first project of its kind in the field of underground cables.

For further information please feel free to contact us at info.muc@ilf.com

On April 1, 2019, the Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) awarded ILF Consulting Engineers the design services for the Water Transmission System for NEOM. This project will contribute significantly to the world’s most ambitious development program “NEOM”.

On the occasion of the contract signing, ILF’s delegation, consisting of the Executive Vice President, Andreas Ramharter, ILF Saudi Arabia’s Managing Directors, Lars Fjellstroem and Karl Tobler, as well as ILF’s Head of Water Pipeline Engineering, Alexander Heinz, received a warm welcome from both his Excellency Eng. Ali Bin AbdulRahman AlHazmy, Governor of SWCC, and his Excellency Eng. Sharekh Bin Ibrahim Al-Sharekh, Deputy Governor for Technical Affairs and Projects. ILF has successfully been supporting SWCC for more than 40 years in the development of water supply systems for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Joint research initiatives with universities are one of the major drivers of innovation at ILF Consulting Engineers. As part of the doctoral program “SiC!” created together with ILF, the Vienna University of Technology offers a lecture on the topic “Smart Industrial Concept (SiC!)”.

The challenges of an energy optimized operation of industrial plants, their energy conversion, distribution and storage, and the investigation of their interaction with the general conditions of the energy industry are the focal points of the lecture.

Starting in the summer semester 2019, ILF is proud to be able to present the application aspects of the doctoral program in an industrial environment.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact DI Dr. Christopher Binder (christopher.binder@ilf.com).

More information can be found here as well as here: https://sic.tuwien.ac.at/industriepartner/

ILF Consulting Engineers, in a consortium led by the Danish company Ramboll, has been awarded a contract for the Baltic Pipe Project (Jutland–Funen) by Energinet (Denmark). Over the next 12 months ILF and Ramboll will jointly be performing the FEED.

The Baltic Pipe is a new gas pipeline (approx. 300 km onshore, approx. 300 km offshore) connecting Norway’s Europipe II system through Denmark with Poland. Operation is scheduled to start in October 2022 and the pipeline will be designed to initially carry 10 bcma of gas with potential for expansion. Once construction has been completed, the gas delivered through this pipeline will contribute to the diversification of gas supplies in Poland by using not only original Russian sources but also other sources like the Swinoujscie LNG terminal extension (7.5 bcma) as well as a potential FSRU project in Gdansk (5 bcma). This new infrastructure will create a regional gas hub for Central Europe via interconnectors to the Czechia, Slovakia, Lithuania and Ukraine.

ILF is involved at various stages of planning in all of the above mentioned gas projects.

ILF Consulting Engineers has recently been commissioned by the city of Munich’s construction authority to provide supervision and project control and maintenance services for the safety upgrade of the Altstadtring Tunnel.

The Altstadtring Tunnel constructed in the 1960s forms part of the inner-city ring road in the center of Munich, and has a total length of 610 m. The tunnel has two to three lanes. A single-lane access road from the Von-der-Tannstrasse allows access from the Altstadtring.

In order to adapt the aging tunnel to modern safety standards, retrofitting is to be carried out in the existing tunnel while maintaining tunnel operation and a working tunnel safety system. Due to the location of the Altstadtring Tunnel, construction and commissioning should be carried out as safely as possible and with little disruption.

In 2018 the ENR Global Sourcebook published its 77th ranking for top international design firms. Once more, ILF Consulting Engineers was able to secure its position as a top international design firm for pipelines, being ranked 6th and thus improving on its 10th position from the 2016 ranking.

Pipeline projects have played an important role in the ILF Group ever since its founding in 1967. ILF’s first project was the Transalpine Pipeline (TAL), a one-of-a-kind project which, due to its crossing the Alps, was probably the most difficult pipeline project in the world at that time.
For more than 50 years, ILF Consulting Engineers has continued to establish itself as a trusted consultant and global player for the designing and engineering of demanding and challenging major pipeline projects. Having sometimes had to break new ground in order to find the optimum solution, ILF has provided its clients with individualized solutions, from planning to decommissioning. Whether in extreme mountain terrains, under challenging weather conditions, or over long distances, ILF has designed some of the largest pipeline systems in the world.

Amongst many others, ILF was involved in the Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline Project (ADCOP), the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline Project (TAP), the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline Project (TANAP), Trans-Asia Gas Pipeline (TAGP), the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline and the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline.

For further information please feel free to contact us: info.muc@ilf.com

ILF Consulting Engineers is pleased to announce its participation, as a Gold sponsor, in the 14th Pipeline Technology Conference (PTC) taking place in Berlin from March 19th to March 21th 2019.

During this year’s PTC, our experts will demonstrate their technical expertise. Tobias Baier will be presenting on the topic of Project Risk Management, and Chuan Cheng on the thermal interaction between adjacent, buried crude oil pipelines.

You are most welcome to visit us at stand 48 (Estrel Convention Center, Berlin, Germany) to find out more about our competences and experience in the field of pipeline engineering.

Let us know how we can help you tackle your challenges (info.muc@ilf.com)! We look forward to your visit. For further information, please visit the official PTC website at http://www.pipeline-conference.com

In a recent ski resort test carried out by Snow-Online, the 10 best ski resorts in the world for the 2018/2019 season have been chosen. Amongst them are four of our clients:

• Serfaus Fiss Ladis
• Ski Arlberg
• Sölden
• Saalbach Hinterglemm Leogang Fieberbrunn

ILF Consulting Engineers would hereby like to congratulate our clients on this great success and looks forward to working with you in the future!

More information can be found here: https://www.skigebiete-test.at/skimagazin/top-10-die-weltbesten-skigebiete.htm

Germany/Kazakhstan, February 2019 – KLPE, an affiliate of the United Chemical Company (UCC), initiated Kazakhstan’s first world-scale GSU project, which, with its total capacity of 1,250 ktpa, is to supply feedstock to the polyethylene plant in the Atyrau Region. The project is being executed as part of a Joint Development Agreement between the UCC and Borealis. ILF Consulting Engineers (ILF) is delighted to have been commissioned to carry out the Project Management Consultancy (PMC) services, including the supervision of a Detailed Feasibility Study (DFS), which will support KLPE in the delivery of this strategically important project.

“These strategic UCC initiatives pave the way for the Republic of Kazakhstan’s establishment as a global player in the polyolefin market. By utilizing advanced technologies, engaging world-leading contractors and suppliers, and targeting high levels of safety, reliability and operability, we aim to ensure the maximum return on capital investments” says Maksim Sonin, UCC Project Portfolio Managing Director, and Board Member.

“ILF is proud to support KLPE in this professionally-led and rapidly-progressing project. With the team’s ability to integrate ILF’s Western style of project management and Kazakh engineering requirements with local, state-owned project execution processes, as well as the expertise offered by the team, I am highly confident that the DFS phase will create the maximum value for UCC and its partner, whilst supporting their strategy of sustaining Kazakhstan’s development in the polyolefin market” adds ILF Project Manager and Upstream Area Manager Helge Hoeft.
The heart of the project is the NGL recovery facility, located close to the Tengiz oil field, with a maximum feed gas capacity of over 7 billion Sm3/a for recovering ethane and heavier components as feedstock for the polyethylene project. In addition, a feed gas pipeline from TCO’s facilities, an approximately 180 km long C2+ export pipeline to the polyethylene plant, and a redelivery gas pipeline to the GEEP pipeline, are within the project scope.

ILF Consulting Engineers will be represented at the 3rd Annual International Congress and Exhibition: Hydropower Caspian and Central Asia 2019, organized by Vostockcapital, in the Biltmore Hotel from February 20 to 21, 2019. High-level participants will discuss key topics and set the course for hydropower construction and operation in the Caspian and Central Asian region.

We look forward to meeting you at our stand, number 10. For questions prior to the event, please contact thomas.fritz@ilf.com. For further information, please visit the website at https://www.hydropowercongress.com/

“Contributing to improving quality of life around the world” is a motto that not only fits with ILF’s vision, but certainly also applies to the association Engineers without Borders Austria (IOG – Verein Ingenieure ohne Grenzen Austria). For more than a year now, the two institutions have been successfully collaborating with each other, most notably on the Tyrolean regional group’s “EduZapa” project.

As part of this project, the Tyrolean regional group, which includes some ILF employees, has been improving educational opportunities for school pupils in rural Mexico, since 2016. To ensure that the 3rd project implementation phase was carried out at a high technical level, the planning of the drainage and roof truss was examined by experts from ILF. Several workshops on the topic “Internal Processes” were also held by ILF.

Both ILF and the Tyrolean regional group value the fruitful cooperation with each other, and look forward to continued collaboration during the 4th project implementation phase planned for this year.

At the end of last year, ILF Consulting Engineers was commissioned by EnergyAustralia as provider for independent verifier services for the pumped hydro project using seawater at Cultana in South Australia.

The facility would be capable of producing 225 megawatts (MW) of electricity with around eight hours of storage. That’s the equivalent of installing 126,000 home battery storage systems, but at a third of the cost. Pumped hydro works by using two bodies or reservoirs of water, one at a high elevation, at the top of a hill, and another at a lower elevation, at the bottom. The Cultana project will also include two penstocks, a powerhouse containing two reversible Francis turbines, a tailrace structure and a seawater intake/outfall structure as well as a connection to an existing 275 kV transmission line and balance of plant systems. The water to fill the reservoirs will be sourced from the Spencer Gulf. This water will pass through a pre-treatment filter and then be desalinated via a reverse osmosis process.

It’s potentially a great, cost-effective way of integrating renewable power and ensuring energy is reliable and affordable.

Together with DIN A4 Architektur, ILF Consulting Engineers won the overall design services competition for the “IST Austria Laborgebäude für Life Science und Seminarzentrum” in Klosterneuburg (Lower Austria), achieving 1st place against tough competitors.

The new laboratory building and seminar center shall have a total usable floor area of approximately 13,300 m², and shall be a concrete structure. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2020, with completion planned for 2022.

Within the joint venture, ILF has been entrusted with the project management services, the structural design, the HVAC planning, as well as occupational health and safety management during the project preparation phase in compliance with the Austrian BauKG (Construction Works Coordination Act).