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 access channel dredging, Walvis Bay

The port of Walvis Bay is a naturally sheltered deepwater harbor on the west coast of Africa. The port is part of a transit route linking Southern Africa, Europe and the Americas and it is Namibia’s largest commercial port, handling around 5 million tons of cargo each year. The container terminal can accommodate a throughput of about 250,000 containers per year.

Coastal protection, St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg is a UNESCO World Heritage City, but its location along the River Neva means that it has been threatened by over 300 floods since its founding by Peter the Great in 1703. The completion of the new 25 km long storm-surge barrier across the Gulf of Finland ensures that the city will no longer be vulnerable to high tides and devastating floods. As a result of the new Flood Protection Barrier, however, the old winding access channel had to be replaced with a new, straighter, more easily navigable channel.

Coastal protection, Delfland coast

In August 2008 Van Oord and Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. have been awarded a contract by the Dutch Directorate General for Public Works and Water Management to reinforce a weak link in the Delflandse coast . The contract is worth EUR 120 million of which Van Oord and Boskalis have an equal share.

Cleanup, Zellingwijk area

The Zellingwijk quarter of the village of Gouderak was built in the middle of the last century. In the early 1980s it became clear that the soil underneath this residential area was heavily contaminated as a result of the dumping of waste - mainly mineral oils and pesticides. The homes built on the site were subsequently demolished in the mid-1980s. Pending definitive remediation work, a layer of concrete / asphalt was applied to seal the site.

Overview activities, Bahrain

The Kingdom of Bahrain is an island located in the Gulf, east of Saudi Arabia and north of Qatar and connected with its neighbour Saudi Arabia since the year 1980 with a 25 km long causeway. The archipelago consists of some 30 islands with a total of 160 km of shoreline and has a population of 800,000. Whereas the surface of Bahrain in the year 1960 was around 650 km², the last decennia have seen a steady increase in the surface till a respectable figure of 740 km² in 2007. This increase has been achieved by a various number of small and mayor reclamation projects.

Early works for LNG plant, Brass Island

The Brass LNG Project’s objective is to construct a LNG Complex on Brass Island, Bayelsa State, Nigeria, and in so doing, develop Nigeria’s abundant gas resources, reduce the adverse effect of gas flaring on the environment, and provide social-economic benefits to the local and wider Nigerian communities. The LNG complex will be designed to produce approximately 10 million tons per annum (MTPA) of LNG, as well as LPG and Residual NGL products.