To main content

Maintenance, Martin Garcia channel

The Rio Parana is the principal fairway for transporting the massive exports of agricultural products from the fertile plains of Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay. Ocean going vessels sail the Parana River to the loading terminals in the Rosario region, situated 300 km upstream from the Rio de La Plata estuary. Both the Rio Parana and the Rio Uruguay flow into the Rio de la Plata. The Rio de la Plata can be described as a shallow inland-sea with natural depths between 1 and 6 m. The mouth of the Rio Parana from the Ocean is approximately 250 km. The Rio de la Plata has a width of 40 km on the upstream side near Buenos Aires and about 200 km downstream at the level of Montevideo.

The Martin Garcia Channel needed dredging over a length of 76 km to achieve a guaranteed depth of 32" for the entire route, thus creating a second access to the Parana and Uruguay river systems without the restrictions on length of the vessels. Hydronamic, the Boskalis consultancy arm, lead the estimation of sedimentation rates. Hydronamic also co-ordinated the ship simulations at MSCN and designed the toll collection system.

The Riovia consortium including Boskalis was awarded the maintenance dredging contract for a period of 8 years.  

Related projects

Selected filters
Loading_TSHD_by_CSD_header.jpg

Creation bird island, Le Havre port 2000

Le Havre is the fifth largest container port in Europe and is expanding its facilities: the current 14 quays for container vessels are to be expanded with another 12 (all outside the locks). Port 2000’s rationale centres on Le Havre’s determination to position itself as a leading hub.

hfd_onder_header.jpg

Creating two berths pockets, NCIG terminal

For 200 years the Port of Newcastle has been Australia’s premier coal export harbor. Of the 95 Mtpa of various commodities such as steel, aluminum, minerals and so forth exported from Newcastle in 2008-2009, 90.5 Mtpa were attributable to coal. Average annual growth rate of coal exports from 1990 to 2006 was 6.1%. This constant increase has caused a spike in ships queuing to enter the harbour to be loaded. To increase capacity and avoid these traffic jams, a decision was made to develop a new coal stockpile area and construct a third coal terminal.

Balboa_2_header.jpg

Port expansion, Balboa

The plans to expand the Panama Canal represent one of the most important infrastructure improvements of the 21st century. Since its opening in 1913 the Canal has provided the shortest and most economically viable shipping route from Pacific to Atlantic seaports. With the ever-increasing size of modern-day vessels, it was inevitable that the Canal would need to be widened and deepened. The expansion of the Canal has made the extension of the Port of Balboa at the mouth of the canal on the Pacific Ocean a necessity. The Phase 4 projects included Marine Works and Civil Works to improve two existing berths and to build a completely new berth capable of handling not only Post Panamax but also Super Post Panamax ships.

DSCF0226_header.jpg

Land reclamation, North Manama Causeway

The purpose of the project was to provide additional land to accommodate a section of a proposed new highway system to service the area and to relieve congestion on the corniche road. Boskalis appointed Hydronamic (the in-house engineering department of Boskalis) to provide detailed design and on site assistance with supervision of the sub-contractor for the rock works.

Figure_1_header.jpg

Port environmental mitigation measures, Hamina

Hamina, which is close to the Russian border in south-east Finland, is a home port for the oil industry and a transit harbor for timber, cars and other goods on their way to Russia. To provide access for larger vessels it had to deepen the existing channel by two meters to 12 meters and create a new channel section. Terramare Oy, a subsidiary of Royal Boskalis Westminster, won this assignment in late 2008. The project started in July 2009.

Raahe_1_header.jpg

Port development, Raahe

The Raahe project is the largest dredging contract in Finnish history. Access for larger ships is economically important for the clients using the port of Raahe, such as the steel company Ruukki.