Van Oord Dredging and Marine Contractors B.V. (Van Oord) and Koninklijke Boskalis Westminster N.V. (Boskalis) deliver the first stage of Maasvlakte 2 to client Port of Rotterdam Authority. As IAA PortNews learnt from the company the work was delivered on April 17, 2013. It was completed on schedule, on budget and in accordance with the quality requirements specified.
The work on the expansion of the port of Rotterdam started five years ago. Today the realisation of 700 hectares of new industrial sites, 11 kilometres of seawall, 3.5 kilometres of quay wall, 24 kilometres of roads, 14 kilometres of rail and 560 hectares of port basin is a fact.
Maasvlakte 2 is a project with big numbers: 240 million cubic metres of sand was sprayed to create land, raise industrial sites and construct 7.5 kilometres of beach and dunes. 7 million tonnes of riprap, 20,000 concrete blocks, each weighing more than 40 tonnes and 150,000 tonnes of clay were processed in the 3.5 kilometres of hard seawall. Around 300,000 cubic metres of concrete was used in the construction of the quay walls.
Van Oord specialists together with other consortium members and the client designed and built a hard seawall was as a stony dune with a block dam in front of it as a breakwater. The gale which this innovative seawall should be able to resist occurs in statistical terms only once every 10,000 years. PUMA developed a special crane to build the block dam: the Blockbuster. This 1,200-tonne equilibrium crane could place a 50-tonne burden 63 metres from the heart of the mobile undercarriage with a precision of 15 centimetres.
The contract includes a maintenance period of 10 years. Boskalis and Van Oord have undertaken to keep the entire seawall at optimum strength until 2023. Similar to the entire Dutch coastline, sand will also have to be added here to the soft seawall. Following every severe gale, the hard seawall will also be inspected and, if necessary, the cobble beach will have to be replenished.
Van Oord is one of the leading international contractors specializing in dredging works and maritime constructions. The company’s headquarters are in Rotterdam (Netherlands).