Dredging work in the Prinses Amaliahaven on the Maasvlakte in Rotterdam has been successfully completed. The harbour basin has been deepened to 20 metres below sea level. During the peak of the work, three Van Oord vessels were working at the same time, turning the port orange-blue. With the completion of this work, the delivery of the project later this year nears.

The construction consortium, consisting of Van Oord, Hochtief and Ballast Nedam, is building two deep-sea quays, an inland shipping quay and some earth-retaining walls.

Van Oord’s cutter suction dredger Biesbosch and trailing suction hopper dredgers Vox Apolonia and Vox Alexia dredged the port to a depth of 20 metres below sea level. The Biesbosch dredges to a depth of about 15 metres. The trailing suction hopper dredgers take care of the last 5 metres. The sand dredged from Prinses Amaliahaven was partly reused in the adjacent Prinses Alexiahaven, where Van Oord is working on a 45-hectare land reclamation project.

Trailing suction hopper dredgers Vox Apolonia and Vox Alexia run on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), a more sustainable alternative to Marine Gas Oil (MGO), minimising sulphur and particulate emissions. In addition, the combustion process of LNG differs from that of MGO, resulting in lower nitrogen dioxide emissions. The state-of-the-art Vox Apolonia and Vox Alexia became operational last year. Van Oord’s ambition is to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement. By switching to alternative fuels such as LNG, we can achieve our goals.