Vattenfall Completes Horns Rev 3 Mine Removal Ops

Vattenfall informed that the operation to detonate WWII mine under Denmark’s future offshore wind farm Horns Rev 3 has been completed.

The mine had been identified from a geophysical survey of the specific area, which was conducted in 2015.

“I understand that people are fascinated by the explosion, but 99.9% of the work actually takes place before the explosion,” said Vattenfall’s senior geophysicist Arne Rød Lauridsen, who came to Vattenfall a year ago to work on locating mines which were known to lie on the seabed in the vicinity of Horns Rev 3.

“We already knew the minefield existed because it was recorded on nautical charts but in order to obtain more precise information we found the mines’ coordinates in German logs from 1944. Using old German nautical charts converted into modern-day GPS coordinates, we established that there were three mines in total.” explained Arne.

Two of the mines were from WWI and were quite small. However, the third mine was a so-called LMB mine from WWII and had an explosive charge of 700 kg. This mine was handled by the Naval Staff division of Danish Defence Command (DDC).