Van Oord and DEME are extremely proud to have accomplished the deepening of the Świnoujście-Szczecin Fairway, one of the most important dredging projects in Poland’s history. The project was done with vessels from Van Oord (flying the Dutch flag) and DEME. Together with the Ministry of Transport and the Maritime Office of Szczecin, the joint venture partners celebrated the official opening of the 65 km Fairway on May 9.
Providing access from the Baltic Sea, the Fairway runs between the city of Świnoujście and the Port of Szczecin. With approximately 24 million m3 of material dredged, the channel has been deepened by 2 m to -12.5 m, which enables the Port of Szczecin to handle the next generation of vessels.
Cutting-edge dredger fleet deployed
The enormous scale of this project is reflected in the numbers. More than 2,000 people were employed over its duration. The joint venture partners focused on working with local parties as much as possible and the non-dredging works were largely executed by Polish companies. Ten main dredging units were deployed along the Fairway, including Van Oord’s Dutch flagged trailing suction hopper dredgers ‘Vox Amalia’ and ‘HAM317’.
Source: Van Oord