Monday, January 12, 2009

AMEC, the international engineering and project management company, has been selected for two annual Business Achievement Awards by the Environmental Business Journal (EBJ).

One was a Mergers and Acquisitions Award, in the ?Large Deals? category, for a series of five acquisitions in the United States that strengthened AMEC?s capabilities in environmental, geotechnical, natural resources, marine, and green-building/sustainability consulting and engineering.

The other was a Business Achievement Award in the ?New Practice Areas? category, for impressive results from its recently established Research and Development (R&D) Program, under which the company?s Earth & Environmental Division funds promising projects proposed by its employees.

The AMEC acquisitions cited by EBJ were Geomatrix Consultants, a $100 million high-end geotechnical and environmental engineering firm; Steward and Associates, a fisheries and watershed management consultancy; Marine & Environmental Testing, a specialist in industrial hygiene and regulatory compliance; Smith Williams Consultants, a provider of engineering services to the mining industry; and OEST Associates, an architect engineering firm.

The R&D program was created to promote AMEC?s technical excellence, competitiveness and visibility to clients, regulatory agencies and prospective employees. EBJ lauded the completion of the first round of projects in 2008, citing: ?positive results of an investigation into whether some species of algae can be used to rapidly remediate naphthenic acids from oil sands tailings ponds; successful experiments showing that activated carbon can be used to bind and trap PCBs in sediment, thereby reducing threats to wildlife that live in or drink from streams; and the publication of Nanotechnology and the Environment, a book co-authored by four AMEC scientists that explores how nano-scale materials can impact human health and the environment.?

The awards were chosen by a committee of EBJ staff and EBJ advisory board members. They will be formally presented at a special ceremony on Feb. 18 at EBJ?s annual Environmental Industry Summit in Coronado, Calif.

Notes to editors:

AMEC is a focused supplier of high-value consultancy, engineering and project management services to the world's energy, power and process industries. With annual revenues of over US$3.4 billion, AMEC designs, delivers and maintains strategic and complex assets for its customers. AMEC's Natural Resources, Power and Process and Earth and Environmental businesses employ over 23,000 people in more than 30 countries globally. AMEC?s Earth and Environmental division operates from 130 offices in the U.S., Canada and overseas. The business provides a broad range of environmental, geotechnical, water resources, infrastructure, materials testing, and project management services to public and private clients.