The Damen Shipyards Group has sold a full option Cutter Suction Dredger (CSD) 500 to the Argentinian dredging contractor Servimagnus, the company said in its release.
The CSD will work on the ambitious waterways programme in the province of Buenos Aires. The modular dredger is currently under construction in the Netherlands, and will be shipped to South America this autumn.
“Currently, there is an important dredging project taking place in Argentina,” explains Ezequiel Najmias, Damen Shipyards Group sales manager Americas.
“One of the major rivers in the outstretched plains in the Argentinian Province of Buenos Aires, the Salado River, is undergoing major maintenance dredging. Due to heavy siltation, flooding has become a regular occurrence in the past decade, threatening agriculture and livestock. This Damen CSD500 will be added to Servimagnus’ local dredge fleet to push forward the maintenance dredging job.
The CSD500 will be fitted out with a spud carriage pontoon, resulting in an ultra-efficient dredging operation due to the impressive swing with of over 52 m – sweeping the river clean in wide strokes.”
The modular dredger will be customised using a number of standard optionals. These include a day accommodation which is placed underneath the operating cabin, a heavy duty cutterhead for breaking up compacted soils, a wedge piece for shallow water dredging and a position visualisation system for keeping track of the dredging works. Moreover, a non-radioactive production measurement system will be delivered to record the production of the suction dredger.
At present, the cutter suction dredger is under construction at the Damen Dredging yard in Nijkerk, The Netherlands. The dredger will be ready in time for spring in the Southern Hemisphere, when it will be shipped over to Argentina where to join the rest of the Servimagnus fleet – cleaning up the silted rivers.
Damen Shipyards Group operates 36 shipbuilding and repair yards, employing 13,000 people worldwide. Damen has delivered more than 6,500 vessels in more than 100 countries and delivers around 175 vessels annually to customers worldwide. Based on its unique, standardised ship-design concept Damen is able to guarantee consistent quality. Damen’s focus on standardisation, modular construction and keeping vessels in stock leads to short delivery times, low ‘total cost of ownership’, high resale values and reliable performance. Damen offers a wide range of products, including tugs, workboats, naval and patrol vessels, high speed craft, cargo vessels, dredgers, vessels for the offshore industry, ferries, pontoons and superyachts. For nearly all vessel types Damen offers a broad range of services, including maintenance, spare parts delivery, training and the transfer of (shipbuilding) know-how. Damen also offers a variety of marine components, such as nozzles, rudders, winches, anchors, anchor chains and steel works. Damen Shiprepair & Conversion (DSC) has a worldwide network of eighteen repair and conversion yards of which twelve are located in North West Europe. Facilities at the yards include more than 50 floating (and covered) drydocks, including the longest, 420 x 80 metres, and the widest, 405 x 90 metres, as well as slopes, ship lifts and indoor halls. Projects range from the smallest simple repairs through Class’ maintenance to complex refits and the complete conversion of large offshore structures. DSC completes around 1,300 repair and maintenance jobs annually, both at yards as well as in ports and during voyage.