Rapid supply of drinking water for Ankara, Turkey

109 valves for Ankaras water supply

Country: Turkey
Customer: ASKI Büyüksehir Belediye Baskangli Su Ve Kanalizasyon Idaresi
Products: VAG RIKO® Control Valves, VAG EKN® Butterfly Valves, VAG SKR Swing Check Valves

Immediate relief for severe water shortage in the Turkish capital Ankara, the capital of Turkey since 1923 and the country's second largest city, is located in one of Turkey's driest areas. The rapid rise in the number of the city's inhabitants to more than four million and the nationwide drought led to a severe water shortage in 2007. The city actually had to implement a restriction policy.

The mayor of Ankara, Melih Gökcek, spontaneously gave the go-ahead for a gigantic pipeline project that promised to quickly bring permanent relief. ABB (Ankara Beton Boru), one of the largest construction companies in the region, awarded this very ambitious project. The goal was to supply Ankara with water from the Kizilirmak river as quickly as possible. To do this, three pipelines with a length of 130 km were needed. Two of the pipelines would have a diameter of 1.40 m and be laid parallel to each other. All three pipelines would lead to a big supply line with a diameter of 2.70 m, which would feed the water into Ankara's supply system. The flow rate was calculated at 9,000 litres per second.

In July 2007, VAG received the order for 109 valves

All of which had to be completed in four months, and most of which had to be equipped with electrical actuators and delivered according to a very tight schedule. A real challenge, which, we are proud to say, we mastered with absolute precision. On 22nd August 2007, the mayor of Ankara, Melih Gökcek, visited VAG's plant in Mannheim/Germany to gain an impression of the current production status and VAG's reliability. Announcing the completion of 'his' prestigious project for 20th October 2007, his birthday, his wedding anniversary and the day he was inaugurated, meant that a lot was at stake.

'The imposed deadlines made the assignment particularly tricky, and we were more than happy to accept the challenge. The order management team in our Customer Service Centre and our process management team put a detailed process plan in place and carried out the operations according to plan. This enabled us to ensure that we were on schedule and that nothing got in the way of our completing the pipelines on time,' says Robert Fellner-Feldegg, Managing Director of VAG.

More than 1,200 people worked on the building site, some of them around the clock

At the end of September 2007 the first valves were on their way to the site by lorry. To ensure the extremely tight deadline was met, VAG sent one-fourth of the industrial valves to Turkey by air freight. But despite VAG’s meticulous timing, the works were delayed at the building site, which delayed the installation of the valves. The first test run was carried out in February 2008, and the water-works put into operation in March 2008.

Positive experiences from previous projects meant that the Turkish water board knew it could rely on VAG's quality and delivery reliability.

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VAG-Group
Headquarters
Carl-Reuther-Str. 1
68305 Mannheim
Germany
Tel.: +49 621 749-0
Fax: +49 621 749-2156
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