A N N U A L R E P O R T A N D A C C O U N T S - CMVM

Management Report of the Board of Directors - Financial Year 2008
This Mission has been followed throughout TEIXEIRA
DUARTE’s history thought the application of its Values, that
go from Skill, to Efficiency, to Engagement, to Truth, to
Commitment to the obligations toward its stakeholders, to the
Trust of its employees and to the Respect for its peers and for
the dignity of the human beings and of institutions.
These are behaviours that guide everyone’s activities and
which reflect an implicit and instinctive way of acting that
implies the natural adoption of actions that give priority to
Safety and to the prevention of Health risks, to Quality, to
Pollution prevention, to the preservation of the Environment
and to Social Responsibility and which indeed become
fundamental vectors in all employees’ behaviour.”
We continue to promote and to provide training within the
general and specific scope of Safety, Quality and
Environment, aiming to cover more people and more topics,
highlighting the development of these matter in Angola, due to
the requirements arising from the significant work portfolio in
that country, as well as in the different commercial areas, with
the preparation of specific documentation related to Safety,
Environment and Quality documentation that is required in
Tender Programmes.
In fact, the Company has been increasingly careful in
achieving and having a solid performance in this matter,
through the control of the environmental impacts deriving
from its activities, products and services, in line with the
different standards, policies and outlined objectives.
With regard to Equipment, there was an improvement in the
respective occupancy rate values, which went from 37% in
2007 to 47% in 2008, as well as the significant investment in
the acquisition of new machines for road construction, due to
the fact that part of them had to be available for the Angolan
and Algerian markets.
Teixeira Duarte’s Material Laboratory also started to deploy
its resources to support the works being carried out in Angola,
namely in the manufacture and control of the concrete
produced by the company of the Group based in Luanda,
“Betangola, Lda.”.
Despite the considerable deployment of resources used for
that purpose, in 2008, five new tests were accredited by the
Portuguese Accreditation Institute:
- Determination of Void Volume and Density NP EN 1097-3:
2002;
- Determination of Crushing Strength NP 1039: 1974;
- Depth of Penetration of Water under Pressure NP EN
12390-8: 2003;
- Determination of Water Absorption by Immersion. Tests
performed under Atmospheric Pressure. LNEC E 394: 1993;
- Determination of Water Absorption by Capillary Action EN
13057: 2002.
The profound changes in the legislation relating to concrete
manufacture, control and applications, deriving from Decree-
Law No. 301/2007 of 23 rd August, led the Laboratory, together
with the Central Directorate for Safety, Quality and
Environment and with the Formwork Operation Centre and
also with the support of “Associação QSP” (Portuguese Steel
Industry Quality Association), to promote and carry out a
refresher training campaign in those areas for the Company’s
senior executives.
With regard to Research and Development, sprayed
concrete was the material chosen in 2008, following the work
carried out in this field to obtain that high performance
material (in terms of shrinkage and permeability), applied dry
in the rehabilitation works on Barra Bridge, in Aveiro.
In this area and within the scope Geotechnique and
foundations, a technical and scientific cooperation protocol
was signed with the Construction Institute of the Faculty of
Engineering of Porto, regarding the development of “Studies
to Asses the Conditions that led to sand liquefaction (“sable
de Les Dunes”) at the time of the Boumerdes earthquake in
Algeria, 2003”.
As announced above, the other activity developments of
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