Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. has acquired a contract with port operator Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) for deepening and widening the port and access channel of JNPT in Mumbai, India.
The contract has a total value of approximately EUR 175 million. The dredging work will commence in September 2012 and is expected to take two years to complete.
The expansion comprises the deepening and widening of the 33.5 kilometers’ long access channel, the port basins and turning basins. In total, approximately 67 million cubic meters of sand, silt, clay and rock will be removed. For this project, a jumbo and medium sized trailing suction hopper dredgers will be used in combination with a jumbo cutter suction dredger and a large backhoe.
Jawaharlal Nehru Port is the largest container port in the country with an annual handling capacity of 4.3 million TEU. This volume represents more than 50% of the total quantity of containers that are handled by Indian ports. By deepening the port from the current 11.5 meters to over 14 meters, it will be possible to receive larger types of container vessels and as a result, according to the port operator, the annual capacity will increase to approximately 10 million TEU.
The Boskalis strategy is designed to benefit from the key macro-economic drivers that fuel global demand in our selected markets: global trade, increasing energy consumption, population growth and the challenges of changing climate conditions. This project is driven by the demand for global trade.
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Dredging Today Staff, August 2, 2012; Image: Boskalis