At the end of October, the A.C.B. Latvia completed reconstruction of runways at the Palanga airport in the western part of Lithuania. The modernisation was intended to increase the carrying capacity and improve the safety of the runway at the airport. As part of the construction works, 83,000 tonnes of mineral and bitumen mixtures were laid. The surface works at the airport required fast pace, mobilisation of the contractor and reliability of deliveries. The high-quality bitumen was supplied by LOTOS Asfalt.
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“Our company is a professional and reliable manufacturer and supplier of bitumen for construction of surfaces with the highest operational requirements, such as construction or repair of airports in Poland and abroad” emphasises Krzysztof Rodzik, Member of the Board of LOTOS Asfalt. “This is due to the very high quality of our products and excellent logistics of deliveries, which are a priority in our business. The Palanga airport is another aviation project where our modern bitumen has been used. Our portfolio includes airports in, among others, Vilnius, Warsaw, Gdańsk, Wrocław, Rzeszów, Dęblin, Radom, Bydgoszcz and Pyrzowice, where investors and contractors trusted us, and we did our best to meet their high expectations and succeeded” adds Krzysztof Rodzik.
The Palanga airport, which handled 338,000 passengers in 2019 and 120,000 in 2020, is an important transport point in conjunction with the large non-freezing seaport at Klaipeda. There is a well-developed road network around the airport, which provides connections to the major cities in the region and neighbouring countries. As part of the airport reconstruction, the 2.3 km long and 45 m wide runway was modernised. All bitumen layers of the runway were replaced, just like the underlying aggregate base layers. More than 90 per cent of the materials from the demolition of the old surface were recycled and reused in the construction of new surfaces.
The nature and extent of the works and the high standards of airport surfaces require bitumen of particular quality and performance characteristics. The use of polymer-modified bitumen provides taxiways with high durability and resistance to deformation, as well as protection against the effects of water, frost and de-icing salts. Bitumen surfaces are also safe surfaces with the appropriate roughness - a parameter extremely important for airport roads, which is why this solution is used both in Poland and abroad.
LOTOS Asphalt supplied 650 tonnes of modified bitumen for the renovation of the Palanga airport. “In 2021, nearly 30% of LOTOS Asfalt's sales were to foreign markets. We are an important supplier in the region of Central and Eastern Europe. Our bitumen is delivered to, among others, the Baltic States, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, and Ukraine. Scandinavia is also an important export market” adds Krzysztof Rodzik.
