Seville, February 1, 2007. – The chairman of Abengoa, Javier Benjumea Llorente, and the architect Richard Rogers have had a meeting with the mayor of Seville, Alfredo Sanchez Monteseirin, to show him the design project for the Palmas Altas Technological Center, Abengoa’s new HQ in Seville. Construction will commence on the complex, for which the corresponding application for the construction permission has already been presented to the Department of Planning and Development, during the course of the first quarter of 2007. With this project, which is an initiative that is being jointly promoted by the City Council of Seville and the Torrecuellar Industrial and Logistics Center, the Sevillian company will invest almost 130 million euro in the city and employ more than 1,900 people in the complex itself.

The design of the project has been the responsibility of a team led by the British firm Richard Rogers Partnership; in association with the Spanish firms Vidal and Asociados Arquitectos, with the collaboration of the Arup Engineering Company.

Richard Rogers is one of the most reputed architects at international level as he has been masterfully exercising the art of construction for more than 30 years now. Of British nationality, although born in Florence (1933), he studied in the Architectural Association of London and subsequently went on to graduate from Yale University in 1962. During the sixties and seventies, he worked with renowned architects such as Norman Foster and Renzo Piano. With the latter, he designed one of his most famous projects: the George Pompidou Center. Throughout his career, this British architect has known how to genuinely combine the most advanced technology with concern for the environment and sustainable development. The commitment of the Richard Rogers’ team of architects to the environment is more than well-known: the Palmas Altas Technological Center is clear proof thereof.

The design of the Palmas Altas Technological Center serves as a sustainable and technologically revolutionary campus that will include latest generation environmental technologies that will contribute to minimizing electricity auto-consumption: photovoltaic panels, a trigeneration plant, hydrogen cells, efficient air-conditioning and lighting systems, etc. The project is designed to be a sustainability reference, which is precisely the basis of Abengoa’s business activity. With the Palmas Altas Technological Center, the Sevillian company will achieve progressive reductions in CO2 emissions to the atmosphere.

The complex array, which will consist of seven buildings / blocks (between two and four storeys high) grouped in two areas around a central park, will have 3,700 square meters that will house a common services area (kindergarten, gymnasium, travel agencies, etc.). Furthermore, Abengoa’s new HQ will have 1,300 underground parking spaces, gardens and other leisure and relaxation areas.

Abengoa’s new HQ, which will be located at the entrance to the new expansion area of the Avenida de la Palmera zone; between the SE-30 ring road and the future Cortijo de Cuarto urban area, will be built on a 42,100 square meter site, with a constructed surface area of 50,000 square meters. With the installation of this technological complex, Abengoa is going to concentrate, in the city of Seville, its activities related with the leading-edge technologies, environmental excellence and sustainable development. The Palmas Altas Technological Center will be the developing force behind the southern area of Seville and a focus of attraction for other companies and institutions given that the new HQ will cede 16,300 square meters of land so that other entities with a strong technological and research component may establish themselves there.

Abengoa is a technology company that applies innovative solutions for sustainable development in the infrastructures, environment and energy sectors. It is a listed company with treasury stock of 2,744 million euro (01/02/2007) and is present in more than seventy countries where it operates through its five Business Units; Solar, Bioenergy, Environmental Services, Information Technologies, and Industrial Engineering and Construction. (www.abengoa.com).