SHIPPING SERVICES
Equipment Manufacturers, to educate and assist owners in this process, with information on systems, which ENCs are legal, what equipment is legal, training requirements, and more.’ says Critides. The bookstore sells also plotting,
weather, optical, and navigation instruments in addition to a wide range of nautical books covering navigation, seamanship, towing and salvage, ship design and naval architecture, yachting and leisure, marine engineering, cargo work, log books, maritime business and even maritime law.
Dredging Dredging International (DEME Group)
from Belgium has been involved in the Panama Canal expansion project for the past three years and will continue its work until 2012. DI was awarded the dredging contract
for the Pacific entrance of the Canal expansion project, in April 2008. DI bid $177.6m to widen the Canal’s approximate 14km navigation channel to a minimum of 225mtr and deepen it to a maximum level of 15.5mtr Mean Low Water Spring (MLWS). It was the company’s first project in Panama, and is currently one of the largest projects in the Americas. The scope of work includes dredging 9.1m cu mtr from 14.2km of the Canal (some of it hard rock) from its entrance at the Amador Causeway up to Miraflores and the new locks site, making DI’s contribution a vital part of the $5.25bn expansion programme. As agreed with the Panama Canal Authority (ACP), DI has split the project into eight sections, each of which will be dredged over two phases: removal of the relatively soft overburden and then removal of the rock. The contract is scheduled to last four years. DI has deployed nine units in total and
has brought new vessels with the latest technology, including the drillship Yuan Dong 007, thereby providing a mix of very new and proven dredges specifically selected for the job. These include DI’s cutter flagship, 28,200kW self-propelled heavy-duty vessel D’Artagnan that has 6,000kW cutter power, the 9,000cu mtr trailer Breydel and the backhoe Samson, a clamshell and a couple of self-propelled 2000cu mtr hopper barges. Drilling and blasting were initiated with the Yuan Dong 007 chartered by DI, a pioneering vessel designed and built specifically for
The ACP dredging activity is being performed
simultaneously with expansion dredging and should be completed in 2012.
the Panama Canal expansion project. Constructed at a cost of $25m by Chinese blast company Yuan Dong, at Ningbo shipyard, the vessel has 10 integrated towers and the capacity to blast up to 60,000cu mtr of rock a week. In addition to the ACP expansion, DI dredged the approach of the PSA Panama International Terminal as a subcontractor to Alvarado & Durling and Vergel & Castellanos that built the facilities. There was some land-based dredging as well as dredging 1m cu mtr of the channel to increase depth to 14.5mtr at MWLS. PSA Panama International Terminal began operations in mid-2011.
In June 2010, the ACP awarded DI its second Panama Canal contract to dredge Gatun Lake. The Belgium Company had offered the lowest price of $ 39.98m to widen and deepen the existing navigational channel by dredging approximately 4.6m cu mtr in the northern most reaches of the lake. This contract is one component within the ACP Fresh Water Dredging and Excavation Project for the Canal expansion, which includes the dredging and/or excavation of about 30m cu mtr in the 425sq km-Gatun Lake and Gaillard Cut. The Gatun Lake dredging project is vital to ensure that larger, wider ships can reach the new Atlantic locks. Belgium-based Jan de Nul n.v. (JDN)
is one of the companies that form the consortium Grupo Unidos Por el Canal (GUPC) that won the contract for the construction of the third set of locks. JDN was awarded the Atlantic entrance channel dredging with a bid of $89.6m to remove about 14.8m cu mtr, plus dry excavations of 800,000cu mtr. The area extends 13.8km and the Belgium Company will have to deepen the existing entrance to -15.5mtr and widen it to a minimum of 225mtr from the present 198mtr width. The north approach channel to the future new locks will also be widened to a minimum of 218mtr. JDN has also been awarded an option
to dredge a further 2.3m cu mtr that will increase the depth from -15.5mtr to - 16.1mtr. At end-August 2011, the project was 85% complete. The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) dredging activity for the modernisation programme is being performed simultaneously with expansion dredging and should be completed in 2012. Meanwhile, Gaillard Cut, the narrowest part of the waterway, continues to be
DI’s dredger D’Artagnan with with Frank Gehry museum being constructed in foreground 66 PANAMA MARITIME REVIEW 2011/12
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