Suez canal: colossal work for two Belgian companies
Two Belgian dredging companies (the group DEME and Jan De Nul NV) have won a contract for widening and deepening the Suez canal. The Suez canal is the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia. In order to expand the capacity of the canal, allowing the growth of industrial activity in the region, a new Suez canal will be dug next to the existing one. The new canal will be 24 metres deep and 240 metres wide and will be a third of the total length of the existing channel.
The consortium Jan De Nul, Boskalis, Van Oord and NMDC gained the order to the value of nearly 1.2 billion euros, spread equally across the members of the consortium. Among other things, the contract includes the creation of a section parallel to the canal of around fifty kilometres, allowing ships to pass each other without hindrance. The contract also includes widening and deepening a number of sections.
The latter is for the consortium consisting of DEME (Dredging International), Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company, LLC. They will deepen a length of 25 kilometres, once again to a depth of 24 metres. The contract for this consortium is valued at 421.3 million euros.
DEME is one of the largest marine engineering companies in the world. Building on their core activity, dredging and maritime civil engineering works the group has also developed complementary activities in the area of infrastructure, protection against rising sea levels, energy, oil-, and gas- from deep sea mining in a challenging and changeable environment.
Company Jan De Nul NV is a division of the Jan De Nul Group, market leader in dredging and marine works and specialist services for the off-shore market in oil, gas and renewable energy. The group is also a key player in the civil engineering sector and the environment sector.