Construction and maintenance of ports

Project highlights

Creating Gorgon

In 2009, Boskalis was awarded a contract on the Chevron-operated Gorgon Project, one of the largest and most complex contracts to be undertaken in our history. Our scope of work included the design and construction of some of the port facilities at Barrow Island.

Duqm port construction

This extraordinary EPC project we dredged a new harbor basin and entrance channel with a depth of 18 meters, constructed a kilometer-long quay wall, two 400 meter-long jetties and reclaimed land for a port platform including ground improvement and associated 4 km shore protection.

Co-creation in Brazil

From 2011-15, Boskalis was involved in the construction of one of Latin America’s largest port-industry complexes in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Boskalis dredged two huge access channels, a turning basin, an inner channel, mooring berths and constructed revetments for the breakwater and over 13 km of access roads.

Dredging techniques

Trailing suction hopper dredger

Trailing suction hopper dredgers can fill their own holds (hoppers) by sucking material from the seabed using a trailing suction head fitted to pipes that trail over the bed as the ship sails.

Cutter section dredger

Dredging with a cutter suction dredger takes place while the vessel is moored with spuds or anchors and consists of powerful cutting action combined with suction.

Backhoe dredger

A backhoe dredger (BHD) is a hydraulic excavator installed on a pontoon. Dredging is executed by the excavator which is mounted on a turntable at the front of the pontoon. The backhoe dredger is mainly used for dredging in shallow or confined waters.

Port development, Gothenburg

Gothenburg turns around some 34 million tons of cargo annually, including 700,000 TEU (containers), and is unique in the region. With regard to the variety and frequency of calls from intercontinental liner trade the port is outstanding in Sweden. The port can be reached from the sea via two different channels: Torshamnen Fairway and Böttö Fairway. From a navigational point of view both channels needed to be deepened and widened at a number of places. Thus there were two good reasons to enhance the fairways: securing the port’s future as the premier port for liner trade and creating safer navigation. This resulted into a major dredging contract which was awarded in June 2002 to Boskalis Westminster Dredging Company.

Remediation, Urk harbor area

Many port areas requiring dredging works have been forced to put projects on hold due to the absence of an environmentally safe solution for the disposal or processing of contaminated sediments. While this is a global problem, the availability of central, large-scale repositories in the Netherlands has transformed disposal economics at the national level. Nevertheless, the high level of debris encountered during the dredging of ports and harbors remains a major challenge to all contractors. The hydraulic transport of sediments with a high debris content is impossible.

Port construction, Pusan

The 4th largest container terminal in the world is located in the South East of the South Korean peninsula at Busan. As the old port is completely surrounded by the metro-city, expansion of the old port is restricted. To solve the chronic phenomenon of cargo congestion MOMAF (Ministry of Marine and Fisheries) decided in 1997 to construct a new port situated 20 km west of Busan with a final total handling capacity of 4.6 million TEU and total expenses of 4.2 billion USD.

Port construction and environmental monitoring, Mejillones

Boskalis International B.V. was working as a subcontractor to the Chilean civil contractor Empresa Constructora BELFI SA, which was awarded the contract to construct phase 1 of the New Mega Port Mejillones. This port has been developed in order to ship the copper of the Chilean mining corporation CODELCO.

Cleanup, Ketelmeer

Ketelmeer, a lake in the Netherlands with a length of some 10 kilometers and a width varying from two to three kilometers, separates the North Eastern and Southern Polders constructed during the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is a major example of the problem of 'historic pollution'. Lake Ketelmeer receives the waters of the Rijn and IJssel and over a period of three or more decades, tens of millions of cubic meters of highly contaminated sediments entered Ketelmeer from hundreds of upstream locations. The bottom was covered by polluted sediments to an average depth of 50 cm. A significant proportion of this material had to be removed, or capped by the cleaner sediments of recent years, if a normal aquatic environment was to be restored.

Tunnel construction Warnow, Rostock

The Warnow Tunnel is located in Rostock, Germany, at the old mouth of the river Warnow in the Baltic Sea. In the DDR period this area grew out to be the main harbor of East-Germany. After the 'turn' (die Wende) in 1989 the port more or less died. Goods came cheaper and quicker from Rotterdam, Bremen and Hamburg by rail.