The dredging project will be carried out in three phases over approximately eight months by Westminster Dredging Company, part of Royal Boskalis Westminster, one of the world’s biggest dredging contractors.

The initial phase will see the large self-contained, ship-shape trailer suction dredger Waterway, the first of her type to operate in Shetland, spend around a month from next week removing the softer seabed material by sucking it into an onboard hopper and then moving to the reclamation site where the material will either be pumped ashore through a temporary prelaid pipeline, or blown ashore if conditions are right.

The back-hoe dredger Manu Pekka will then use its large excavator plant to dig out weathered rock directly and also fresh rock pre-blasted by a drill-and-blast barge.

The back-hoe will load the material into two self-propelled hopper barges for delivery to the reclamation site where it will be dumped or, to assist placement, some may be trucked to the site. The Manu Pekka will operate from mid-May to September.

In an overlapping phase, the drill-and-blast barge will be operating from mid-June to August.

Almost 490,000 cubic metres of good quality materials will be removed from the seabed during the £12 million project. Most will be used to reclaim 5.8 hectares (14.4 acres) of land to the north of Greenhead Base, creating an additional area for future use in the decommissioning of offshore oil and gas production facilities. The rest of the material will be stockpiled there for later use.

Dredging will be to a depth of 9 metres throughout, a major improvement on the shallower areas, currently at 6 metres’ depth.

Lerwick Port Authority chief executive, Sandra Laurenson, said: “The deeper and wider access and the deepened berths will suit the larger vessels now operating and will be of particular benefit to the pelagic fish sector and offshore industry decommissioning, while the reclaimed land will offer opportunities to decommissioning and other industries.”

Arch Henderson LLP, Lerwick, is responsible for the design and supervision of what will be one of the largest marine civil engineering projects to be completed in Scotland in 2008.

Westminster Dredging has established project offices at SBS’s Greenhead Base, and will have a workforce of 40 to 50, depending on the phases which will see up to 40 accommodated onshore.

Local resources will be used wherever possible for logistics, supplies, reclamation and other construction activities and could generate around a third of the total of 90-100 jobs involved in the project.

www.fishupdate.com is published by Special Publications. Special Publications also publish FISHupdate magazine, Fish Farmer, the Fish Industry Yearbook, the Scottish Seafood Processors Federation Diary, the Fish Farmer Handbook and a range of wallplanners.

Printer friendly version

Email this article to a friend