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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.

Minimizing the impact of dredging operations on the environment becomes increasingly important. This implies the application of specific equipment and work methods, for example a silt barrier to prevent the dispersion of suspended sediments due to dredging operations. An air bubble screen at the entrance of disposal areas can act as such a barrier, which is generated by pumping air through a perforated hose on the sea- or riverbed. The air bubble systems in Hamina consisted of a perforated hose and an air compressor. A rubber hose was applied as this is flexible and withstands water pressure. The diameter of the perforated air holes was about 2 mm, with a spacing of 33 cm. The air compressor generated sufficient power to deliver the required air flow and to overcome frictional losses and the (hydrostatic) water pressure at the seabed.

Related projects

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Shell Malikai

Malikai is a deepwater oil discovery in offshore Sabah, Malaysia where Sabah Shell Petroleum Company is the designated Operator. A floating Dry Tree Unit (DTU) will be installed over Malikai field utilizing a Tension Leg Platform (TLP) design that suits the Malikai environment.

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Coastal development, Hondsbossche and
Pettemer Sea Defense

A joint venture of Boskalis Nederland and Van Oord has been commissioned by the Hollands Noorderkwartier water control board to reinforce the Hondsbossche and Pettemer Sea Defense between the villages of Petten and Camperduin on the coast of the Dutch province of Noord-Holland.

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Maintenance dredging, Yangon River

Located close to the city centre on the Yangon River, Yangon Port has been the main port to Myanmar since colonial times. Currently, the port has capacity for vessels of up to 15,000 –20,000 DWT and works are scheduled to increase the port’s capacity for vessels up to 35,000 DWT.

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Port development,
Libreville - Gabon

A new area was constructed in the Port of Libreville for a mineral terminal, dry dock, fishing port, processing facilities and other port activities, such as aggregate processing. This new port development was required to improve and strengthen the logistic capacity for the inland mining industry, to reduce export costs, and thus to increase the competitiveness of mineral exports from Gabon.

Butendiek OWF

Boskalis was contracted by OWP Butendiek GmbH & Co. KG to supply, install and protect (by post-lay burial) the high-voltage inter-array cable at the offshore wind farm of Butendiek. This German wind farm is situated in the German Bight (Nordsea), approx. 35 km west of the island of Sylt. The 33 km2 wind farm consists of 80 wind turbines with a capacity of 3.6 MW each and a total capacity of 288 MW. The inauguration of the wind farm took place on September 8, 2015. It provides renew-able energy to approx. 370,000 households.

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Cleanup sediment treatment, Fox river

As a result of industrialization the riverbed of the Fox River (Wisconsin, USA) had become contaminated with PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls). Joining together a number of large paper mills based on the banks of the river have established the Fox River Cleanup Group to handle the remediation project. The site is on the federal Superfund program’s National Priorities List.