March 23, 2015 - Panama Canal Expansion project marks a further milestone with the installation of the final lock gate on the Atlantic side.

The importance of the event was also underlined by the meeting in Panama City between the President of the Central American Country Juan Carlos Varela and the top management of Salini Impregilo: CEO Pietro Salini, General Manager Group Finance and Corporate Massimo Ferrari and General Manager International Operations Claudio Lautizi.

The installation of the lock gates is "an extremely complex operation as it entails 'parking' these enormous objects via sliding carriages with very little space to manoeuvre," explains Giuseppe Quarta, Construction Consortium CEO. Each lock gate is 30 metres tall, 60 metres wide and 10 metres thick, and weighs about 4000 tonnes.

The project involves the creation of a new canal that, complementing the existing one, will allow the transit of larger ships, increasing commercial traffic in response to the development and continued expansion of the shipping transport market.