DEME
Encyclopedia
Dredging, Environmental and Marine Engineering NV (in short DEME) is an international group of specialised companies in the field of capital and maintenance dredging, land reclamation
, port infrastructure development, offshore related services for the oil & gas
industry, farshore windfarm
installation, environmental remediation a.o. The group
is based in Zwijndrecht, Belgium
, and has current operations on the five continents. The roots of the group date back to the mid 19th century. DEME is committed to the practice of sustainable development
. In 2009, the Flemish
government agency Flanders Investment and Trade
awarded the Export Lion 2009 to DEME for what was called its 'sustainable strategy of internationalization' and 'the many prestigious assignments carried out worldwide.' In a survey by temporary employment company Randstad Holding
of 12,000 Belgians
in early 2010 DEME was proclaimed one of the most attractive employers in Belgium.
industry at large should be seen against the background of three peculiar conditions: the need for Belgian people to keep open their sea lanes through the Flemish
Banks in the North Sea
; the efforts to maintain free access to the deep inland port of Antwerp; and their perennial struggle against flooding in the Low Countries
. In the process valuable expertise was built up in throwing up banks, reclaiming polders and embanking rivers.
This millenary experience is well documented in history. At around 1180, a very early canal lock was already in operation at the Belgian city of Damme
on the canal from Brugge
to the sea. In 1292 dredging works are chronicled in the canals that linked the mediaeval city of Brugge to the North Sea
. In his Divina Commedia (between 1308 and 1321) the Italian writer Dante Alighieri
compared the hard embankment
on which he was sitting to the dikes that Flemish craftsmen had built between Brugge and the Dutch border. As craftsmanship gave way to a more professional approach and the Industrial Revolution
found its way to the European continent, local contractors incorporated companies that would later merge and consolidate as projects became bigger and the business needed ever more capital. But the millenary tradition, skills and expertise of dealing with water has remained.
The roots of DEME are in the coastal region and the Antwerp area of Belgium. Three companies are at the cradle of DEME: Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon, Ackermans & van Haaren
and Société Générale de Dragage (in Dutch: Algemene Baggermaatschappij).
Around 1850, the De Cloedt family had a small contracting business in the Belgian city of Brugge which diversified into dredging canals and building coastal defences as from 1875. The company would be incorporated in 1928, and is nowadays part of DEME as Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon. In 1880 the contractors Nicolaas van Haaren (1835–1904) and Hendrik-Willem Ackermans (1855–1945) established a gravel
winning and dredging business in the Belgian city of Antwerp. It was incorporated on 30 December 1924 and remained the core asset of what is nowadays the Belgian investment company
Ackermans & van Haaren, one of the two shareholders of DEME. Maintenance dredging on the Schelde river was also carried out by Société Générale de Dragage/Algemene Baggermaatschappij (SGD). This company was established on 5 April 1930 with the De Cloedt family and the Belgian construction and publicly listed company CFE
as its shareholders. However, SGD had older roots dating back to the construction of the port of Zeebrugge
(inaugurated in 1907).
In the 1970s a major consolidation movement happened in the dredging industry in Europe. In 25 years, the number of European dredging companies dropped from fourteen in 1970 to six by the turn of the century. On 27 November 1974 the dredging division of Ackermans & van Haaren merged with Société Générale de Dragage - creating synergies that proved to be much welcome in the booming markets of the Middle East after the 1973 oil shock
. Together they formed Dredging International.
After the global crisis in the dredging business during the 1980s had been resolved, Dredging International and Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon teamed up to become DEME on 10 April 1991. In 2000 the De Cloedt family was bought out by the other shareholders. By 2010 Dredging International and Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon are two DEME operating companies.
The founding companies of DEME have always been active both on their first home market Belgium and abroad. Total volume dredged by Ackermans & van Haaren between 1888 and 1967, both in Belgium and abroad has been calculated at 593,254,000 m³ - without counting the 8,548,000 m³ of rock that was removed and some 1,941,000 m³ of civil constructions and bank protection. Before the First World War, Ackermans & van Haaren was involved in port construction and dredging in France, Russia, Argentina
, Uruguay
and Brazil
. Since the early 1950s Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon and Société Générale de Dragage became involved in dredging and reclamation projects all over the world.
: Creating Land for the Future. The company colours are blue and green, emphasizing the work on the edge between water (blue) and land (green). The corporate logo
features the cutter head of a cutter-suction dredger (CSD), underlined with a blue and green bar. The group is made up of 71 different companies, subsidiaries, branches and representative offices worldwide. At the end of 2009 DEME employed some 3,750 people. In 2009 the group realized a turnover of €1.4 billion and an all-time-high operational cashflow of 21.8 per cent in the second semester. After nine months in 2010, turnover stood at €1.315 billion (vs. €1.008 billion on the corresponding moment in 2009). On 30 September 2010 the orders on hand were valued at €2.122 billion, as compared with €2.073 billion on 30 June In developing its activities, DEME applies a business partnering
philosophy that aims at creating a win-win situation with strong local partners. In 2009 DEME companies were operating in 42 countries.
vessels. At the end of 2009 DEME owned and operated 25 trailing suction hopper dredgers (TSHDs) with a capacity from 1,635 to 30,000 m³. They include the 24,130 m³ Pearl River which was the first megatrailer in the world when she was commissioned in 1994. At the same date the group owned and operated 20 cutter suction dredgers (CSD's), whose installed power is between 441 kW and 28,200 kW. The CSD fleet includes the world's heaviest self-propelled and ocean going rock breaker, the 28,200 kW d'Artagnan. d'Artagnan was built for DEME's French subsidiary Société de Dragage International (SDI) and launched in 2005. In July 2010 a model of CSD d'Artagnan was handed over to the Panama Canal Authority. Further plant includes a variety of backhoe dredgers (a.o. the 2,600 kW Pinocchio; lifting vessels (a.o. the 3,300 tons Rambiz); self-elevating drilling platforms (a.o. the 1,600 tons Goliath); fallpipe vessels (a.o. the 19,000 tons Flintstone); and auxiliary equipment. In 2010 DEME appointed Wilhelmsen Ships Service as supplier for maintenance products and technical gases globally. Both in the Russian Revolution (1917) and in the Second World War almost the complete fleets of respectively Ackermans & van Haaren and Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon were destroyed or lost.
. However, they keep their own identity, operational autonomy, and legal structure. Some of the operating companies of DEME include:
, India, Nigeria
, Bahrain
, Panama
, Venezuela
, Singapore
, Australia, China, Taiwan
, Vietnam
, Brazil
, Ghana
, Luxembourg
, Finland, Dubai
, Abu Dhabi
, Angola
, Saudi Arabia
, Latvia
. Dredging International is an associated company in Middle East Dredging Company QSC (MEDCO).
, Netherlands, the company is a full service
provider for the oil & gas
industry. Tideway is operating worldwide, with activities that include the construction of landfalls and outfalls for pipeline transport
and high-voltage power cables; preparation of the seabed; offshore trench dredging and backfilling; precision rock placement in depths to 987 m. Tideway operates dynamic positioning
(D.P.) fall pipe vessels such as the 12,000 tons Rollingstone and the 19,000 tons Seahorse. The 19,000 tons flagship
Flintstone was launched in Singapore
on 28 April 2010 and is equipped with dynamic positioning
(DP2) and an active heave compensator remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV). The latter enables precision stone dumping in depths to 2,000 m.
recycling and sludge treatment; and NV Bitumar focused on bituminous materials for hydraulic engineering
and fibrous stone asphalt
for coastal engineering works. DEC is specialised in groundwater
- and soil remediation; sediment
treatment; recycling
and landfill
techniques; environmental
dredging; and the redevelopment of brownfields. DEC owns and operates seven permitted soil
- and sediment
recycling centres in Belgium, including in the ports of Antwerpen, Zeebrugge
and Ghent
. In legal terms, DEME Environmental Contractors (DEC) is part of DEME-controlled Ecoterres Holding, in which all environmental activities of DEME are brought together. Other DEME-environmental companies under Ecoterres Holding include de Vries & van de Wiel, with actvities in the Netherlands; Ecoterres which is based in the Walloon part of Belgium; and Extract-Ecoterres which focuses on France. Two new DEC-subsidiaries were established in October 2010: Purazur clusters existing activities in the field of water treatment
and focuses on industrial wastewater treatment
in the first place; Terrenata is active in purchasing, remediation and redevelopment of so-called brownfield land
. In the latter respect, Terrenata is business partnering
with BPI and Extensa, the project development companies of the two DEME shareholders.
foundation; rock socketing; drilling
and hammering of large-diameter piles; geotechnical investigation
at large depth. The company was established in 2005, when various disciplines within DEME were brought together to become a new legal entity. As a geotechnical offshore contractor, GeoSea typically operates from proprietary large jack-up platforms, such as Zeebouwer, Vagant,Buzzard" and Goliath. GeoSea has a global scope, with activities and projects executed in a.o. Great-Britain, Germany,
Mexico, Oman
, Australia. In 2010 GeoSea was executing installation works on the offshore Thorntonbank Wind Farm
(Belgium); Alpha Ventus Offshore Wind Farm (Borkum
, Germany); Walney and Ormonde (Irish Sea
).
. In 2004 International Seaport Dredging (ISD) was incorporated under Indian law as a private joint stock company
together with Larsen & Toubro
. ISD focuses on port development and land reclamation in India. Scaldis Salvage & Marine Contractors was formally established in 1995, following a joint venture
with the same partners since June 1981. Scadis is involved with wreck removal and heavy lift
ing. DEME has a stake of 55 per cent in Scaldis. Widely publicized achievements of Scaldis include the salvage of the French freighter Mont Louis in 1985; the raising of the Herald of Free Enterprise in 1987; and the salvage of the MV Tricolor
car carrier off Dunkirk, following a 2002 collision at sea. DEME is also a founding member of C-Power, the company that builds the Thorntonbank Wind Farm
off the Belgian port of Oostende.
and the development of renewable energy sources, DEME established a fully owned new company in early 2010 which is called DEME Blue Energy. DBE focuses on wave energy and tidal energy, including the development of appropriate technology and prototype equipment that could be used to generate electricity. In 2010 a consortium of industrial partners, named Flanders Electricity from the Sea (FlanSea), submitted a research project for developing a wave energy converter (WEC) which wll undergo an instrumented test in the summer of 2012. DEME Blue Energy is a member of the FlanSea consortium, together with Ghent University
, the port of Oostende, and others. If successful, the new technology could be installed in between the offshore wind turbines of the Thorntonbank Wind Farm
, creating a synergy between two different sources of renewable energy
. In September 2010 the Flemish
Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) granted a €2.4 million subsidy for the FlanSea project. The FlanSea wave energy converter will be a so-called point absorber, modelled after the B1-device off Southeast Norway which was developed under the European funded SEEWEC project, co-ordinated by Prof. dr. ir. Julien De Rouck of the Department of Coastal Engineering at Ghent University
, Belgium. Besides the FlanSea project, DEME Blue Energy is also involved in other initiatives. DEME Blue Energy is a founding member of Friends of the Supergrid, established in London on 8 March 2010 with the objective to help develop a pan-European offshore super grid
for renewable energy
. DEME Blue Energy is also a partner and shareholder in Renewable Energy Base Oostende (REBO), founded on 28 October 2010 for servicing offshore wind farms in Northwest Europe.
At the end of 2009 the DEME Management Committee was composed of:
recycling; offshore services for the oil & gas
industry; fluvial & marine aggregates
; installation of near- and farshore wind farms; marine salvage
, wreck
removal and heavy lift
ing; 'tidal' blue energy
; financial engineering etc. In 2009 capital and maintenance dredging represented 67 per cent of consolidated turnover. Assignments in European Union
countries stood for 35 per cent of consolidated turnover, with 18 per cent in Africa and 13 per cent in Asia.
, a volume which is considered very impressive given the technical plant available at the time. After the Second World War, DEME-companies were closely involved in the extension of the port of Antwerp, both on the right bank of the Schelde during the major ten year infrastructure programme (1956–1967) as with the later development of a completely new port area on the left bank. In the port of Antwerpen DEME built the 500 x 68 m Berendrecht
lock, the largest one in the world, which was completed in 1989. In the 1970s and 1980s several DEME companies took the lead in building the outer port of Zeebrugge
.
From the very early days, DEME companies have worked in the far abroad. As from 1903, Ackermans & van Haaren almost continuously executed infrastructure projects in several countries of Latin America. For ten years, the company was building and expanding the port of Rosario
(Santa Fe
) in Argentina
. In 1912, total volume handled at Rosario was estimated at 9.5 million m³ of dredging and 5.7 million m³ of reclamation
. Other dredging works in Argentina in those years were executed at La Plata
, Bahia Blanca
, Puerto Belgrano
, San Nicolas
, Ensenada
, Sorento, Quequén, the Paraná Delta
, the Matschwitz canal, a.o. From 1910 till 1913 Ackermans & van Haaren built a 1150 m long tunnel in Buenos Aires
, supplying water from the Rio de la Plata
. Other Latin American countries where Ackermans & van Haaren was active before the First World War include Uruguay
, where the company built the port of Montevideo
and carried out gravel
dredging near Colón
, and Brazil
where 8.5 million m³ were dredged in the port of Rio Grande do Sul
between 1908 and 1916.)
In the Russian town of Saint Petersburg
Ackermans & van Haaren built the military harbour, known as Emperor Peter the Great, between 1913 and 1917. In 1916 the company started construction of docks for the Russian navy at Sveaborg near Helsingfors, currently named Helsinki
, the capital of Finland. In the Interbellum DEME-companies built the new Baltic
port of Gdynia
for which a total of 36 million m³ was dredged in what Richardson calls "quite heroic circumstances." In the mid 1930's DEME-companies were at work in the Persian port of Now-Chahr and in Pnom Penh, the capital of then French protectorate of Cambodia. where Ackermans & van Haaren
's flagship Antwerpen III was assigned for dredging the Mekong
river.
Richardson (page 14) claims that "the maritime history of France may be written by way of the involvement of Ackermans & van Haaren in building and dredging its Atlantic and Mediterranean ports". In particular, DEME-companies have been involved in all successive phases of the extension of the Port of Le Havre
since 1904 - the latest phase being Le Havre
Port 2000.
Another DEME operating company, Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon, has been involved for more than one century with dredging the maritime access channels to the Belgian sea ports. Among the company's early assignments in Asia, three projects stand out: construction of the port of Bluff
on New Zealand's South Island
between October 1956 and October 1960 (in a joint-venture with another constituent company of DEME, Société Générale de Dragage/Algemene Baggermaarschappij); the very first reclamation in Malaysia's Port Klang
; and the 1969-1970 extension of the first runway on Kingsford-Smith Airport in Sydney (In 1994 DEME also built the parallel runway, which equally extends on reclaimed land in Botany Bay
).
, expanding maritime trade, further containerisation and a dramatic increase of scale - both in navigation and port facilities, the demand for capital and maintenance dredging, land reclamation and port construction on the five continents generated ocean engineering
projects on an unsurpassed scale.
DEME continued maintenance dredging throughout the decade in the Schelde access channel to Antwerp; the North Sea
access lanes to the Belgian sea ports; the Elbe
river between Cuxhaven and Hamburg
in Germany; the Orinoco
river in Venezuela
; the mouths of the Niger Delta
in Nigeria
, a.o.
On the five continents, the company was active with capital dredging, land reclamation and port construction. In France, DEME companies completed the Port 2000 extension project in the Port of Le Havre
. The €218 million contract involved a total dredged volume of over 45 million m³; construction of 10 km of breakwaters; and 78 ha of land reclamation
. Marine works were executed in tides of up to 8 m and strong current
s of up to 5 knots. On the Mediterranean coast of France, DEME finished the Fos2XL extension at Fos-sur-Mer
. The €400 million contract was awarded by the Port of Marseille Authority (PMA) to a consortium in which DEME-companies carried out the dredging and marine works.
DEME executed other major port construction and extension projects in the decade. In Vuosaari
, Finland, the company was involved in dredging hard rock for the construction of a new container terminal
. In Sepetiba
and Itaguaí
, both in Brazil
, DEME's brand-new TSHD Breydel dredged the access channel and a basin for port extensions. In Dhamra in the state of Orissa
on the eastern coast of India, DEME deepened a 19 km long access channel and reclaimed 130ha for a new port, assigning a.o. a water injection dredger. The €100 million contract in Dhamra was executed by International Seaport Dredging (ISD), in which DEME is partnering with the Indian company Larsen & Toubro
. Since 2005 and into the next decade, DEME has been active in four successive phases with construction of the Russian port of Ust-Luga
at 120 km west of Saint Petersburg
. Ust-Luga
will be the final point of the Second Baltic Pipeline. On a visit at Ust-Luga in January 2006, then Russian president Vladimir Putin
declared that the new port was "extremely important for us. It is one of the largest infrastructure projects of the decade.”
In the Gulf
state of Qatar
DEME delivered the artificial island Pearl of the Gulf ahead of schedule. This project, designed in the form of a seahorse
, called for the excavation of approximately 18 million m³ of material, reclamation of an area of approximately 4.2 million m², around 180,000 m³ of concrete quay walls, and approximately 45 linear kilometers of rock revetment
and sandy beaches. The residential and touristic development project takes into account the future sea level rise for one hundred years to come.
Together with its partners United Development Company (UDC) and the Qatari government, since 2004 working together in Middle East Dredging Company (QDC, later MedCo), DEME created a 22 km² platform for the new Doha
airport, which required 62 million m³ of sand and rock to be removed of which about half was reclaimed from the sea.
On 4 April 2008 the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) awarded the contract to dredge the Pacific sea entrance of the Panama Canal
to DEME operating company Dredging International. The USD177.5 million project widened the Canal's 14 km approach-, access- and navigation channels to a minimum of 218m and deepened them to a maximum level of minus 15.5m. DEME removed a total of 9.07 million m³, including an important volume of hard rock that was broken up with drilling and blasting. Dredging operations took place in the midst of transiting traffic and close to the intensive port activity at Baldoa and Rodman. A follow-on contract involved dredging and deepening at the Rodman quay of PSA Panama International Terminal. In the frame of ACP's Fresh Water Dredging and Excavation Project for the Canal Expansion, Panama Canal Authority further awarded a USD 40 million contract to DEME for widening and deepening the existing navigational channel by dredging some 4.6 million m³ in the northernmost reaches of the Gatun Lake
.
In the decade, offshore assignments by Tideway Offshore Contractors included trench dredging, construction of landfalls, and protection and stabilisation of the Enagás
submarine Balearic
gas pipeline between the Spanish city of Denia
and the Balearic Islands of Ibiza
and Mallorca
, where a depth record was achieved at minus 987m. Tideway had established an earlier depth record in 2000, when stone placement was carried out at a depth of minus 780m at the Malampaya development project in the Philippines
. With proprietary fall pipe vessels, Tideway was continuously involved in rock placement and protection works for the oil industry in North Sea oil
projects. Media reported other assignments, such as the Encana Deep Panuke
project in Nova Scotia
, Canada, and the P9 project for the Pluto LNG project at Woodside, Australia. At the end of 2007 Tideway completed installation of the 580 km HVDC submarine power cable
known as NorNed
, which links the electricity grids of Norway and the Netherlands.
DEME companies executed the full range of marine works during construction of the first phase of C-
Power's Thorntonbank Wind Farm
, including offshore soil investigation, transport and placement of the gravity-based structures, erosion
protection, cable-laying, directional drilling
, a.o. DEME controlled Scaldis Salvage & Marine Contractors was involved in the successful wreck removal of the MV Tricolor
car carrier, lost at sea off Dunkirk
In the field of environmental remediation assignments, DEME Environmental Contractors (DEC)
in its home country Belgium executed the remediation of acid tar basins for Total
in Ertvelde
; the remediation of the former Carcoke Coking Works site in Zeebrugge
; and the remediation and redevelopment
of the 42ha brownfield 't Eilandje in Zwijnaarde
. Abroad, DEME Environmental Contractors were involved in the remediation works at the cyanide
infested former Gas Works site in Dublin Dockland, Ireland; at the Avenue Coking Works site near Chesterfield
, UK; and the decontamination
of the London Olympics 2012 site in Stratford
. In the 2000s DEME Environmental Contractors (DEC) were also active in Sweden with cleaning-up the mercury
contamination in the Svartsjö lakes near Hultsfred
; removing mercury and dioxine from a site in Bengtsfors
; and further in Favernik, Söderhamn
and Gävle
.
, the UK's new deep sea port and logistics park at 25 miles east of Central London on the river Thames.
DEME is dredging a 300m wide channel to a depth between 14.6m and 16.5m while the estuary is currently around 11m deep. Over a distance of 100 km to the sea some 29 million m³ will be dredged; in addition DEME is reclaiming 18 million m³ in the Thames. The 400 million pound contract has to be finished by mid 2014. For the civilian works, DEME is teaming with British contractor Laing O'Rourke
.
With the formal delivery on 31 March 2010, DEME completed the widening and deepening works in the port of Durban
, South Africa that had begun in mid 2007. The existing northern breakwater
was demolished and rebuilt; the existing southern breakwater was strengthened; the port entrance channel was widened from 120m to 220m; and deepened from 12.8m to 19m in the outer channel and 17m in the inner port. A total of more than 10 million m³ of material was dredged, part of which was used for the foundation and reinforcement of the breakwaters. Apart from the mega-dipper Pinocchio and two split barges, DEME assigned the trailing suction hopper dredgers Marieke, Krankeloon, Orwell and Pallieter to the €220 million project. DEME was the managing partner in a consortium
that included South African civilian contractor Group Five.
In the Middle East DEME is executing the dredging and reclamation package for the Ruwais
Refinery Expansion project of Takreer in Abu Dhabi
. The work was awarded to Dredging International in May 2009 and started on 7 June 2009. A total of 42 million m³ is being dredged, pumped and reclaimed by heavy-duty cutter suction dredger Al Mahar and trailing suction hopper dredgers.
In Latin America DEME is (a.o.) active in a major remediation project in the Port of Santos
, Brazil. The €75 million turnkey project calls for the remediation of the illegal dump site Lixao da Alemoa at the edge of a bay. A total of 680.000 m³ of domestic waste and industrial waste
are being processed on an area covering 45 ha, where Brasil Terminal Portuario is building a container terminal
. The major part of it will be recycled and reused; only a fraction of what is left over, between 10.000 and 50.000 m³, will have to be stored. DEME executes this contract through its subsidiary DEME Environmental Contractors (DEC), which also arranged project financing. The Santos
contract was said to be "a breakthrough for DEME in Latin America
. During a princely mission to Brazil, Belgian crown prince
Prince Philippe, Duke of Brabant visited the DEC turnkey project in Santos.
Together with its partner Larsen & Toubro
in International Seaport Dredging (ISD), DEME in 2010 finished deepening of a 10 km access channel, turning basin and berthing foreground in the port of Kakinada
on the eastern coast of India, state of Andra Pradesh. Dredging a total of 6 million m³ deepened the sea port from minus 11.5m to a depth between minus 13.5 and minus 14.5m. A second contract for dredging another 5 million m³ was to be completed by March 2011. Since 1999 DEME has already executed several capital dredging campaigns at Kakinada, both directly. and through International Seaport Dredging (ISD).
On 18 August 2010 DEME was awarded a €105 million contract for dredging and reclamation works to prepare the Imeretinskaya lowland area at Sochi
, Russia, where the Olympic Village
for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games will be built. In an execution period of maximum 14 months, a total of 8 million m³ sand must be dredged and transported over a distance of 120 km to reclaim a 412ha swamp
area to 2.5m above the Black Sea
zero level. DEME has assigned its TSHDs Brabo and Nile River to the Sochi
project.
In Hayle
, off the coast of Cornwall
, UK, DEME subsidiary Tideway Offshore Contractors was involved in precision rock placement for protection of the wave hub
and a 16 km power cable
, linking the tidal energy park with land. Tideway's fall pipe vessel Rollingstone placed some 100.000 tons at a depth between 25m and 35m by way of digital terrain modelling and a remotely operated vehicle
(ROV).
Preceding the current programme, ten major dredgers were added to the DEME fleet under the investment programme 2002-2007. This included the world's largest heavy-duty sea-going cutter suction dredger, the 28,000 kW d'Artagnan. With the construction of the Pearl River in 1994, DEME became a trendsetter for what is now "considered as the first 'jumbo' trailer suction dredger"
On August 1, 2002, the enlargement of Pearl River was started in Singapore. In the process the hopper capacity of Pearl River was increased from 17,000 m³ to 24,146 m³. Moreover, a large deep dredging installation for the Pearl River was built in, which allows this jumbo trailer to dredge to depths of 120 m.
held a leading position in technological innovation, from the very beginning. In 1895 Ackermans & van Haaren
was at the cradle of hydraulic dredging techniques and successfully designed a suction dredger, capable of unloading by its own. In the same year, a first vessel of that type was built and christended as Schelde II. Société Générale de Dragage/Algemene Baggermaatschappij (SGD) realized the very first application of a submersible pump
in dredging, when such a device was developed and fixed on the drag head of TSHD Maas. At the time of her commissioning in September 1994 DEME's 17,000 m³ flagship
Pearl River became, according to Richardson (p. 11), "the very first suction hopper dredge of a completely new generation - featuring twice as much capacity as its biggest successor." In 2005 DEME's French subsidiary
Société de Dragage International (SDI) launched the world's largest heavy-duty and ocean-going cutter suction dredger d'Artagnan (28,200 kW installed power).
Innovative methods that are aiming at improving the dredging process, include DEME's proprietary DRACULA technique which uses high-pressure waterjets to excavate seabed material. DRACULA is an acronym for "Dredging, And Cutting Using Liquid Action." Various improvements of navigation- and dredging software have led DEME to develop and practise the one man-operated bridge. An innovative purpose built drill barge with ten drilling towers, called Yuan Dong 007, was specifically designed and constructed for the 2009 expansion project of the Panama Canal
. The performance and the efficiency of the Hong Kong built drill barge, was said to have been DEME's secret weapon and a decisive factor in winning the 2008 contract for deepening and widening of the Pacific side of the Canal.
and CFE
. The latter is a daughter of the French construction group Vinci. Ackermans & van Haaren and CFE have concluded a shareholders agreement which was renewed for a new term of five years on 6 March 2007.
Land reclamation
Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, is the process to create new land from sea or riverbeds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamation ground or landfill.- Habitation :...
, port infrastructure development, offshore related services for the oil & gas
Petroleum industry
The petroleum industry includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transporting , and marketing petroleum products. The largest volume products of the industry are fuel oil and gasoline...
industry, farshore windfarm
WindFarm
WindFarm is wind energy software used to analyse, design, optimise and visualise wind farms. It calculates and optimises the energy yield subject to natural, planning and engineering constraints. WindFarm has the wind modelling software MS-Micro integrated. MS-Micro is based on the same...
installation, environmental remediation a.o. The group
is based in Zwijndrecht, Belgium
Zwijndrecht, Belgium
Zwijndrecht is both a village and a municipality located in the Flemish province of Antwerp, in Belgium. As well as Zwijndrecht proper, the municipality includes the villages of Burcht. As of January 1, 2006, Zwijndrecht had a total population of 18,231....
, and has current operations on the five continents. The roots of the group date back to the mid 19th century. DEME is committed to the practice of sustainable development
Sustainable development
Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use, that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come...
. In 2009, the Flemish
Flemish
Flemish can refer to anything related to Flanders, and may refer directly to the following articles:*Flemish, an informal, though linguistically incorrect, name of any kind of the Dutch language as spoken in Belgium....
government agency Flanders Investment and Trade
Flanders Investment and Trade
The Flanders Investment and Trade was founded by the Flemish government in 2005. The FIT agency helps both Flemish companies with expanding their business abroad as well as to assist foreign companies sourcing Flemish suppliers of quality goods and services. The FIT agency is headed by Christ’l...
awarded the Export Lion 2009 to DEME for what was called its 'sustainable strategy of internationalization' and 'the many prestigious assignments carried out worldwide.' In a survey by temporary employment company Randstad Holding
Randstad Holding
Randstad Holding N.V. is an international company offering temporary staffing and HR services. Randstad was founded in the Netherlands in 1960 by Frits Goldschmeding and operates in around 40 countries. In 2010, the company achieved a turnover of €14.2 billion and a net profit of €288.5 million...
of 12,000 Belgians
Belgians
Belgians are people originating from the Kingdom of Belgium, a federal state in Western Europe.-Etymology:Belgians are a relatively "new" people...
in early 2010 DEME was proclaimed one of the most attractive employers in Belgium.
History
The history of DEME and the Belgian ocean engineeringOffshore construction
Offshore construction is the installation of structures and facilities in a marine environment, usually for the production and transmission of electricity, oil, gas and other resources....
industry at large should be seen against the background of three peculiar conditions: the need for Belgian people to keep open their sea lanes through the Flemish
Flemish
Flemish can refer to anything related to Flanders, and may refer directly to the following articles:*Flemish, an informal, though linguistically incorrect, name of any kind of the Dutch language as spoken in Belgium....
Banks in the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
; the efforts to maintain free access to the deep inland port of Antwerp; and their perennial struggle against flooding in the Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
. In the process valuable expertise was built up in throwing up banks, reclaiming polders and embanking rivers.
This millenary experience is well documented in history. At around 1180, a very early canal lock was already in operation at the Belgian city of Damme
Damme
Damme is a municipality located in the Belgian province of West Flanders, six kilometres northeast of Brugge . The municipality comprises the city of Damme proper and the towns of Hoeke, Lapscheure, Moerkerke, Oostkerke, Sijsele, Vivenkapelle, and Sint-Rita. On 1 January 2006, the municipality had...
on the canal from Brugge
Brügge
Brügge is a municipality in the district of Rendsburg-Eckernförde, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.Its small church and market square are noted for their beauty....
to the sea. In 1292 dredging works are chronicled in the canals that linked the mediaeval city of Brugge to the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
. In his Divina Commedia (between 1308 and 1321) the Italian writer Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
compared the hard embankment
Levee
A levee, levée, dike , embankment, floodbank or stopbank is an elongated naturally occurring ridge or artificially constructed fill or wall, which regulates water levels...
on which he was sitting to the dikes that Flemish craftsmen had built between Brugge and the Dutch border. As craftsmanship gave way to a more professional approach and the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
found its way to the European continent, local contractors incorporated companies that would later merge and consolidate as projects became bigger and the business needed ever more capital. But the millenary tradition, skills and expertise of dealing with water has remained.
The roots of DEME are in the coastal region and the Antwerp area of Belgium. Three companies are at the cradle of DEME: Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon, Ackermans & van Haaren
Ackermans & van Haaren
Ackermans & van Haaren N.V. is a Belgian holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is active in four key sectors: dredging and construction, real estate, financial services, and private equity...
and Société Générale de Dragage (in Dutch: Algemene Baggermaatschappij).
Around 1850, the De Cloedt family had a small contracting business in the Belgian city of Brugge which diversified into dredging canals and building coastal defences as from 1875. The company would be incorporated in 1928, and is nowadays part of DEME as Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon. In 1880 the contractors Nicolaas van Haaren (1835–1904) and Hendrik-Willem Ackermans (1855–1945) established a gravel
Gravel
Gravel is composed of unconsolidated rock fragments that have a general particle size range and include size classes from granule- to boulder-sized fragments. Gravel can be sub-categorized into granule and cobble...
winning and dredging business in the Belgian city of Antwerp. It was incorporated on 30 December 1924 and remained the core asset of what is nowadays the Belgian investment company
Investment company
An investment company is a company whose main business is holding securities of other companies purely for investment purposes. The investment company invests money on behalf of its shareholders who in turn share in the profits and losses....
Ackermans & van Haaren, one of the two shareholders of DEME. Maintenance dredging on the Schelde river was also carried out by Société Générale de Dragage/Algemene Baggermaatschappij (SGD). This company was established on 5 April 1930 with the De Cloedt family and the Belgian construction and publicly listed company CFE
CFE
CFE may refer to:* Campaign for Fiscal Equity, a non-profit organization which advocates for funding of education in New York City* Campaign for Free Education, a group in the National Union of Students opposed to tuition fees...
as its shareholders. However, SGD had older roots dating back to the construction of the port of Zeebrugge
Zeebrugge
Zeebrugge is a village on the coast of Belgium and a subdivision of Bruges, for which it is the modern port. Zeebrugge serves as both the international port of Bruges-Zeebrugge and a seafront resort with hotels, cafés, a marina and a beach.-Location:...
(inaugurated in 1907).
In the 1970s a major consolidation movement happened in the dredging industry in Europe. In 25 years, the number of European dredging companies dropped from fourteen in 1970 to six by the turn of the century. On 27 November 1974 the dredging division of Ackermans & van Haaren merged with Société Générale de Dragage - creating synergies that proved to be much welcome in the booming markets of the Middle East after the 1973 oil shock
1973 oil crisis
The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC proclaimed an oil embargo. This was "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war. It lasted until March 1974. With the...
. Together they formed Dredging International.
After the global crisis in the dredging business during the 1980s had been resolved, Dredging International and Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon teamed up to become DEME on 10 April 1991. In 2000 the De Cloedt family was bought out by the other shareholders. By 2010 Dredging International and Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon are two DEME operating companies.
The founding companies of DEME have always been active both on their first home market Belgium and abroad. Total volume dredged by Ackermans & van Haaren between 1888 and 1967, both in Belgium and abroad has been calculated at 593,254,000 m³ - without counting the 8,548,000 m³ of rock that was removed and some 1,941,000 m³ of civil constructions and bank protection. Before the First World War, Ackermans & van Haaren was involved in port construction and dredging in France, Russia, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. Since the early 1950s Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon and Société Générale de Dragage became involved in dredging and reclamation projects all over the world.
General
DEME presents itself under a unified image and the single taglineTagline
A tagline is a variant of a branding slogan typically used in marketing materials and advertising. The idea behind the concept is to create a memorable phrase that will sum up the tone and premise of a brand or product , or to reinforce the audience's memory of a product...
: Creating Land for the Future. The company colours are blue and green, emphasizing the work on the edge between water (blue) and land (green). The corporate logo
Logo
A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...
features the cutter head of a cutter-suction dredger (CSD), underlined with a blue and green bar. The group is made up of 71 different companies, subsidiaries, branches and representative offices worldwide. At the end of 2009 DEME employed some 3,750 people. In 2009 the group realized a turnover of €1.4 billion and an all-time-high operational cashflow of 21.8 per cent in the second semester. After nine months in 2010, turnover stood at €1.315 billion (vs. €1.008 billion on the corresponding moment in 2009). On 30 September 2010 the orders on hand were valued at €2.122 billion, as compared with €2.073 billion on 30 June In developing its activities, DEME applies a business partnering
Business partnering
Business partnering is "the development of successful, long term, strategic relationships between customers and suppliers, based on achieving best practice and sustainable competitive advantage".- Mission :...
philosophy that aims at creating a win-win situation with strong local partners. In 2009 DEME companies were operating in 42 countries.
Fleet
DEME has a fleet of almost 300 vessels, among which over 80 main dredging and hydraulic engineeringHydraulic engineering
This article is about civil engineering. For the mechanical engineering discipline see Hydraulic machineryHydraulic engineering as a sub-discipline of civil engineering is concerned with the flow and conveyance of fluids, principally water and sewage. One feature of these systems is the extensive...
vessels. At the end of 2009 DEME owned and operated 25 trailing suction hopper dredgers (TSHDs) with a capacity from 1,635 to 30,000 m³. They include the 24,130 m³ Pearl River which was the first megatrailer in the world when she was commissioned in 1994. At the same date the group owned and operated 20 cutter suction dredgers (CSD's), whose installed power is between 441 kW and 28,200 kW. The CSD fleet includes the world's heaviest self-propelled and ocean going rock breaker, the 28,200 kW d'Artagnan. d'Artagnan was built for DEME's French subsidiary Société de Dragage International (SDI) and launched in 2005. In July 2010 a model of CSD d'Artagnan was handed over to the Panama Canal Authority. Further plant includes a variety of backhoe dredgers (a.o. the 2,600 kW Pinocchio; lifting vessels (a.o. the 3,300 tons Rambiz); self-elevating drilling platforms (a.o. the 1,600 tons Goliath); fallpipe vessels (a.o. the 19,000 tons Flintstone); and auxiliary equipment. In 2010 DEME appointed Wilhelmsen Ships Service as supplier for maintenance products and technical gases globally. Both in the Russian Revolution (1917) and in the Second World War almost the complete fleets of respectively Ackermans & van Haaren and Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon were destroyed or lost.
Operating companies
Operating companies of DEME step forward under the common DEME flag, colours and taglineTagline
A tagline is a variant of a branding slogan typically used in marketing materials and advertising. The idea behind the concept is to create a memorable phrase that will sum up the tone and premise of a brand or product , or to reinforce the audience's memory of a product...
. However, they keep their own identity, operational autonomy, and legal structure. Some of the operating companies of DEME include:
Dredging International
Dredging International is one of the major operating companies of DEME and focuses on the core activities of the group: capital and maintenance dredging; deepening and maintaining navigation channels; major port development; reclamation of new industrial or residential areas, artificial islands, beaches and coastal protection. Its roots are in the Antwerpen area of Belgium where its constituent companies began capital and maintenance dredging on the Schelde at the end of the 19th century. Dredging International has subsidiaries, branches and representative offices in Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Russia and East Europe, Mexico, UruguayUruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
, India, Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, Bahrain
Bahrain
' , officially the Kingdom of Bahrain , is a small island state near the western shores of the Persian Gulf. It is ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family. The population in 2010 stood at 1,214,705, including 235,108 non-nationals. Formerly an emirate, Bahrain was declared a kingdom in 2002.Bahrain is...
, Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
, Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, Australia, China, Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
, Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
, Finland, Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...
, Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi , literally Father of Gazelle, is the capital and the second largest city of the United Arab Emirates in terms of population and the largest of the seven member emirates of the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi lies on a T-shaped island jutting into the Persian Gulf from the central western...
, Angola
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...
, Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
. Dredging International is an associated company in Middle East Dredging Company QSC (MEDCO).
Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon
Like its sister company Dredging International, Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon is focused on the core activities of the DEME group: capital and maintenance dredging; deepening and maintaining navigation channels; major port development; reclamation of new industrial or residential areas, artificial islands, beaches and coastal protection. The difference is mainly historical and geographical. Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon started its business with capital and maintenance dredging in the coastal approaches of Belgium. However, nowadays Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon are operating globally with assignments on all continents. Since 2000 the De Cloedt family is no longer a shareholder in Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon.Tideway Offshore Contractors
Tideway is the offshore division of DEME and was established in 1991. Based in BredaBreda
Breda is a municipality and a city in the southern part of the Netherlands. The name Breda derived from brede Aa and refers to the confluence of the rivers Mark and Aa. As a fortified city, the city was of strategic military and political significance...
, Netherlands, the company is a full service
Full service
Full service is a term that has many different uses. In general the term implies that the customer will receive as much service as is reasonably possible.-Gas station:...
provider for the oil & gas
Petroleum industry
The petroleum industry includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transporting , and marketing petroleum products. The largest volume products of the industry are fuel oil and gasoline...
industry. Tideway is operating worldwide, with activities that include the construction of landfalls and outfalls for pipeline transport
Pipeline transport
Pipeline transport is the transportation of goods through a pipe. Most commonly, liquids and gases are sent, but pneumatic tubes that transport solid capsules using compressed air are also used....
and high-voltage power cables; preparation of the seabed; offshore trench dredging and backfilling; precision rock placement in depths to 987 m. Tideway operates dynamic positioning
Dynamic positioning
Dynamic positioning is a computer controlled system to automatically maintain a vessel's position and heading by using its own propellers and thrusters...
(D.P.) fall pipe vessels such as the 12,000 tons Rollingstone and the 19,000 tons Seahorse. The 19,000 tons flagship
Flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...
Flintstone was launched in Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
on 28 April 2010 and is equipped with dynamic positioning
Dynamic positioning
Dynamic positioning is a computer controlled system to automatically maintain a vessel's position and heading by using its own propellers and thrusters...
(DP2) and an active heave compensator remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV). The latter enables precision stone dumping in depths to 2,000 m.
DEME Environmental Contractors (DEC)
DEME Environmental Contractors (DEC) was incorporated in 1999 as a merger of various DEME-companies that were established in the 1980s: NV Soils was a specialised company for soil washing and in-situ soil remediation techniques; NV Silt had developed expertise in siltSilt
Silt is granular material of a size somewhere between sand and clay whose mineral origin is quartz and feldspar. Silt may occur as a soil or as suspended sediment in a surface water body...
recycling and sludge treatment; and NV Bitumar focused on bituminous materials for hydraulic engineering
Hydraulic engineering
This article is about civil engineering. For the mechanical engineering discipline see Hydraulic machineryHydraulic engineering as a sub-discipline of civil engineering is concerned with the flow and conveyance of fluids, principally water and sewage. One feature of these systems is the extensive...
and fibrous stone asphalt
Asphalt
Asphalt or , also known as bitumen, is a sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid that is present in most crude petroleums and in some natural deposits, it is a substance classed as a pitch...
for coastal engineering works. DEC is specialised in groundwater
Groundwater
Groundwater is water located beneath the ground surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water. The depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in rock...
- and soil remediation; sediment
Sediment
Sediment is naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of fluids such as wind, water, or ice, and/or by the force of gravity acting on the particle itself....
treatment; recycling
Recycling
Recycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...
and landfill
Landfill
A landfill site , is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment...
techniques; environmental
Environmental management
Environmental resource management is “a purposeful activity with the goal to maintain and improve the state of an environmental resource affected by human activities” . It is not, as the phrase suggests, the management of the environment as such, but rather the management of the interaction and...
dredging; and the redevelopment of brownfields. DEC owns and operates seven permitted soil
Soil
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...
- and sediment
Sediment
Sediment is naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of fluids such as wind, water, or ice, and/or by the force of gravity acting on the particle itself....
recycling centres in Belgium, including in the ports of Antwerpen, Zeebrugge
Zeebrugge
Zeebrugge is a village on the coast of Belgium and a subdivision of Bruges, for which it is the modern port. Zeebrugge serves as both the international port of Bruges-Zeebrugge and a seafront resort with hotels, cafés, a marina and a beach.-Location:...
and Ghent
Ghent
Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...
. In legal terms, DEME Environmental Contractors (DEC) is part of DEME-controlled Ecoterres Holding, in which all environmental activities of DEME are brought together. Other DEME-environmental companies under Ecoterres Holding include de Vries & van de Wiel, with actvities in the Netherlands; Ecoterres which is based in the Walloon part of Belgium; and Extract-Ecoterres which focuses on France. Two new DEC-subsidiaries were established in October 2010: Purazur clusters existing activities in the field of water treatment
Water treatment
Water treatment describes those processes used to make water more acceptable for a desired end-use. These can include use as drinking water, industrial processes, medical and many other uses. The goal of all water treatment process is to remove existing contaminants in the water, or reduce the...
and focuses on industrial wastewater treatment
Industrial wastewater treatment
Industrial wastewater treatment covers the mechanisms and processes used to treat waters that have been contaminated in some way by anthropogenic industrial or commercial activities prior to its release into the environment or its re-use....
in the first place; Terrenata is active in purchasing, remediation and redevelopment of so-called brownfield land
Brownfield land
Brownfield sites are abandoned or underused industrial and commercial facilities available for re-use. Expansion or redevelopment of such a facility may be complicated by real or perceived environmental contaminations. Cf. Waste...
. In the latter respect, Terrenata is business partnering
Business partnering
Business partnering is "the development of successful, long term, strategic relationships between customers and suppliers, based on achieving best practice and sustainable competitive advantage".- Mission :...
with BPI and Extensa, the project development companies of the two DEME shareholders.
GeoSea
GeoSea is a DEME company that specializes in the installation of offshore structures such as an offshore windfarm or a jettyJetty
A jetty is any of a variety of structures used in river, dock, and maritime works that are generally carried out in pairs from river banks, or in continuation of river channels at their outlets into deep water; or out into docks, and outside their entrances; or for forming basins along the...
foundation; rock socketing; drilling
Drilling
Drilling is a cutting process that uses a drill bit to cut or enlarge a hole in solid materials. The drill bit is a multipoint, end cutting tool...
and hammering of large-diameter piles; geotechnical investigation
Geotechnical investigation
Geotechnical investigations are performed by geotechnical engineers or engineering geologists to obtain information on the physical properties of soil and rock around a site to design earthworks and foundations for proposed structures and for repair of distress to earthworks and structures caused...
at large depth. The company was established in 2005, when various disciplines within DEME were brought together to become a new legal entity. As a geotechnical offshore contractor, GeoSea typically operates from proprietary large jack-up platforms, such as Zeebouwer, Vagant,Buzzard" and Goliath. GeoSea has a global scope, with activities and projects executed in a.o. Great-Britain, Germany,
Mexico, Oman
Oman
Oman , officially called the Sultanate of Oman , is an Arab state in southwest Asia on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by the United Arab Emirates to the northwest, Saudi Arabia to the west, and Yemen to the southwest. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the...
, Australia. In 2010 GeoSea was executing installation works on the offshore Thorntonbank Wind Farm
Thorntonbank Wind Farm
The Thorntonbank Wind Farm is an offshore wind farm, off the Belgian coast, in water ranging from deep. Electricity production started in early 2009, with a capacity of 30 MW...
(Belgium); Alpha Ventus Offshore Wind Farm (Borkum
Borkum
Borkum is an island and a municipality in the Leer District in Lower Saxony, northwestern Germany.-Geography:Borkum is bordered to the west by the Westerems strait , to the east by the Osterems strait, to the north by the North Sea, and to the south by the Wadden Sea...
, Germany); Walney and Ormonde (Irish Sea
Irish Sea
The Irish Sea separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is connected to the Celtic Sea in the south by St George's Channel, and to the Atlantic Ocean in the north by the North Channel. Anglesey is the largest island within the Irish Sea, followed by the Isle of Man...
).
Participations
DEME participates in several companies that are co-owned with partner companies. Middle East Dredging Company (MEDCO) is a partnership of DEME with the Qatari United Development Company (UDC) and the Qatari government. MEDCO focuses on dredging and land reclamation projects in the GulfArab states of the Persian Gulf
"Arab states of the Persian Gulf" or "Arab Persian Gulf states" or "Persian Gulf Arab states" or "Arabic Persian Gulf states" or "Arab States of The Gulf", are terms that refer to the six Arab states of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, bordering the Persian Gulf....
. In 2004 International Seaport Dredging (ISD) was incorporated under Indian law as a private joint stock company
Joint stock company
A joint-stock company is a type of corporation or partnership involving two or more individuals that own shares of stock in the company...
together with Larsen & Toubro
Larsen & Toubro
Larsen & Toubro Limited is an Indian multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Mumbai, India. The company has four main business sectors: technology, engineering, construction and manufacturing. L&T has an international presence, with a global spread of offices and factories, further...
. ISD focuses on port development and land reclamation in India. Scaldis Salvage & Marine Contractors was formally established in 1995, following a joint venture
Joint venture
A joint venture is a business agreement in which parties agree to develop, for a finite time, a new entity and new assets by contributing equity. They exercise control over the enterprise and consequently share revenues, expenses and assets...
with the same partners since June 1981. Scadis is involved with wreck removal and heavy lift
Heavy lift
- Definition :The transportation, handling and installation of heavy items which are indivisible, and of weights generally accepted to be in the range of 1 ton to over 1000 tons and of widths/heights of more than 100 meters that are too large to fit into normal containers or onto conventional...
ing. DEME has a stake of 55 per cent in Scaldis. Widely publicized achievements of Scaldis include the salvage of the French freighter Mont Louis in 1985; the raising of the Herald of Free Enterprise in 1987; and the salvage of the MV Tricolor
MV Tricolor
MV Tricolor was a 50,000 tonne Norwegian-flagged vehicle carrier built in 1987, notable for having been involved in three English Channel collisions within a fortnight.-Collision and sinking, 14 December 2002:...
car carrier off Dunkirk, following a 2002 collision at sea. DEME is also a founding member of C-Power, the company that builds the Thorntonbank Wind Farm
Thorntonbank Wind Farm
The Thorntonbank Wind Farm is an offshore wind farm, off the Belgian coast, in water ranging from deep. Electricity production started in early 2009, with a capacity of 30 MW...
off the Belgian port of Oostende.
DEME Blue Energy (DBE)
Against the background of its long experience with ocean engineeringOffshore construction
Offshore construction is the installation of structures and facilities in a marine environment, usually for the production and transmission of electricity, oil, gas and other resources....
and the development of renewable energy sources, DEME established a fully owned new company in early 2010 which is called DEME Blue Energy. DBE focuses on wave energy and tidal energy, including the development of appropriate technology and prototype equipment that could be used to generate electricity. In 2010 a consortium of industrial partners, named Flanders Electricity from the Sea (FlanSea), submitted a research project for developing a wave energy converter (WEC) which wll undergo an instrumented test in the summer of 2012. DEME Blue Energy is a member of the FlanSea consortium, together with Ghent University
Ghent University
Ghent University is a Dutch-speaking public university located in Ghent, Belgium. It is one of the larger Flemish universities, consisting of 32,000 students and 7,100 staff members. The current rector is Paul Van Cauwenberge.It was established in 1817 by King William I of the Netherlands...
, the port of Oostende, and others. If successful, the new technology could be installed in between the offshore wind turbines of the Thorntonbank Wind Farm
Thorntonbank Wind Farm
The Thorntonbank Wind Farm is an offshore wind farm, off the Belgian coast, in water ranging from deep. Electricity production started in early 2009, with a capacity of 30 MW...
, creating a synergy between two different sources of renewable energy
Renewable energy
Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable . About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from...
. In September 2010 the Flemish
Flemish
Flemish can refer to anything related to Flanders, and may refer directly to the following articles:*Flemish, an informal, though linguistically incorrect, name of any kind of the Dutch language as spoken in Belgium....
Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) granted a €2.4 million subsidy for the FlanSea project. The FlanSea wave energy converter will be a so-called point absorber, modelled after the B1-device off Southeast Norway which was developed under the European funded SEEWEC project, co-ordinated by Prof. dr. ir. Julien De Rouck of the Department of Coastal Engineering at Ghent University
Ghent University
Ghent University is a Dutch-speaking public university located in Ghent, Belgium. It is one of the larger Flemish universities, consisting of 32,000 students and 7,100 staff members. The current rector is Paul Van Cauwenberge.It was established in 1817 by King William I of the Netherlands...
, Belgium. Besides the FlanSea project, DEME Blue Energy is also involved in other initiatives. DEME Blue Energy is a founding member of Friends of the Supergrid, established in London on 8 March 2010 with the objective to help develop a pan-European offshore super grid
Super grid
A super grid is a wide area transmission network that makes it possible to trade high volumes of electricity across great distances. It is sometimes also referred to as a "mega grid".-History:...
for renewable energy
Renewable energy
Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable . About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from...
. DEME Blue Energy is also a partner and shareholder in Renewable Energy Base Oostende (REBO), founded on 28 October 2010 for servicing offshore wind farms in Northwest Europe.
Board of Directors and Management Committee
At the end of 2009 the DEME Board of Directors was composed of:| Luc Bertrand Luc Bertrand Luc Bertrand is a Belgian businessman. He is at present the CEO of Ackermans & van Haaren, which is business concern active in construction, dredging, and environmental services, human resources services, financial services, and private equity... |
Chairman of the Board of Directors |
| Renaud Bentégeat | Chairman of the Management Committee |
| Philippe Delaunois | |
| Lode Franken | |
| Werner Poot | |
| Jan Suykens | |
| Marc Stordiau |
At the end of 2009 the DEME Management Committee was composed of:
| Alain Bernard | Chief Executive Officer (CEO) |
| Theo Van De Kerckhove | Chief Operating Officer (COO) |
| Philip Hermans | Area Director Americas - Oceania - Asia; General Manager Dredging International |
| Christian Van Meerbeeck | Chief Legal Officer (CLO) |
| Eric Tancré | Area Director North Europe |
| Martin Ockier | Area Director Benelux |
| Marc Maes | Chief Financial Officer (CFO) |
| Dirk Poppe | Area Director Middle, Eastern Europe and Russia |
| Harry Mommens | Human Resources Manager |
| Pierre Potvliege | Area Director Indian Subcontinent |
| Pierre Catteau | Area Director Mediterranean |
| Bernard Paquot | Area Director Middle East |
Projects
In the past decades DEME activities have significantly diversified. New businesses were developed such as soil remediation; siltSilt
Silt is granular material of a size somewhere between sand and clay whose mineral origin is quartz and feldspar. Silt may occur as a soil or as suspended sediment in a surface water body...
recycling; offshore services for the oil & gas
Petroleum industry
The petroleum industry includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transporting , and marketing petroleum products. The largest volume products of the industry are fuel oil and gasoline...
industry; fluvial & marine aggregates
Aggregate (composite)
Aggregate is the component of a composite material that resists compressive stress and provides bulk to the composite material. For efficient filling, aggregate should be much smaller than the finished item, but have a wide variety of sizes...
; installation of near- and farshore wind farms; marine salvage
Marine salvage
Marine salvage is the process of rescuing a ship, its cargo, or other property from peril. Salvage encompasses rescue towing, refloating a sunken or grounded vessel, or patching or repairing a ship...
, wreck
Shipwreck
A shipwreck is what remains of a ship that has wrecked, either sunk or beached. Whatever the cause, a sunken ship or a wrecked ship is a physical example of the event: this explains why the two concepts are often overlapping in English....
removal and heavy lift
Heavy lift
- Definition :The transportation, handling and installation of heavy items which are indivisible, and of weights generally accepted to be in the range of 1 ton to over 1000 tons and of widths/heights of more than 100 meters that are too large to fit into normal containers or onto conventional...
ing; 'tidal' blue energy
Blue energy
Osmotic power or salinity gradient power is the energy available from the difference in the salt concentration between seawater and river water. Two practical methods for this are reverse electrodialysis and pressure-retarded osmosis.....
; financial engineering etc. In 2009 capital and maintenance dredging represented 67 per cent of consolidated turnover. Assignments in European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
countries stood for 35 per cent of consolidated turnover, with 18 per cent in Africa and 13 per cent in Asia.
Historic realizations
For more than a century and up to the current days, DEME-companies have been involved in capital and maintenance dredging in the maritime approaches to the Belgian coastal ports as well as the fairway between Vlissingen and Antwerp. Between 1894 and 1911 Ackermans & van Haaren dredged some 25 million m³ when deepening the Belgian and Dutch stretches of the Western ScheldtWestern Scheldt
The Western Scheldt in the province Zeeland in the southwestern Netherlands, is the estuary of the Scheldt river. This river once had several estuaries, but the others are disconnected from the Scheldt, leaving the Westerschelde as its only direct way to the sea. It is an important shipping route...
, a volume which is considered very impressive given the technical plant available at the time. After the Second World War, DEME-companies were closely involved in the extension of the port of Antwerp, both on the right bank of the Schelde during the major ten year infrastructure programme (1956–1967) as with the later development of a completely new port area on the left bank. In the port of Antwerpen DEME built the 500 x 68 m Berendrecht
Berendrecht
Berendrecht is a village in Antwerp province in Belgium. Its name means "dike of the bear", according to the area's dialect, or "dike of a man called Bear", or "passage by the marsh"...
lock, the largest one in the world, which was completed in 1989. In the 1970s and 1980s several DEME companies took the lead in building the outer port of Zeebrugge
Zeebrugge
Zeebrugge is a village on the coast of Belgium and a subdivision of Bruges, for which it is the modern port. Zeebrugge serves as both the international port of Bruges-Zeebrugge and a seafront resort with hotels, cafés, a marina and a beach.-Location:...
.
From the very early days, DEME companies have worked in the far abroad. As from 1903, Ackermans & van Haaren almost continuously executed infrastructure projects in several countries of Latin America. For ten years, the company was building and expanding the port of Rosario
Rosario
Rosario is the largest city in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. It is located northwest of Buenos Aires, on the western shore of the Paraná River and has 1,159,004 residents as of the ....
(Santa Fe
Santa Fe Province
The Invincible Province of Santa Fe, in Spanish Provincia Invencible de Santa Fe , is a province of Argentina, located in the center-east of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Chaco , Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Santiago del Estero...
) in Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
. In 1912, total volume handled at Rosario was estimated at 9.5 million m³ of dredging and 5.7 million m³ of reclamation
Land reclamation
Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, is the process to create new land from sea or riverbeds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamation ground or landfill.- Habitation :...
. Other dredging works in Argentina in those years were executed at La Plata
La Plata
La Plata is the capital city of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and of La Plata partido. According to the , the city proper has a population of 574,369 and its metropolitan area has 694,253 inhabitants....
, Bahia Blanca
Bahía Blanca
Bahía Blanca is a city located in the south-west of the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, by the Atlantic Ocean, and seat of government of Bahía Blanca Partido. It has a population of 274,509 inhabitants according to the...
, Puerto Belgrano
Puerto Belgrano
Base Naval Puerto Belgrano is the largest naval base of the Argentine Navy, situated next to Punta Alta, near Bahía Blanca, about south of Buenos Aires...
, San Nicolas
San Nicolás, Buenos Aires
San Nicolás is one of the neighbourhoods of the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, sharing most of the city and national government structure with neighboring Montserrat and home to much of Buenos Aires' financial sector...
, Ensenada
Ensenada, Buenos Aires
Ensenada is a city and port in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, located around the Ensenada de Barragán. It has 31,031 inhabitants as per the...
, Sorento, Quequén, the Paraná Delta
Paraná Delta
The Paraná Delta is the delta of the Paraná River in Argentina. The Paraná flows north–south and becomes an alluvial basin between the Argentine provinces of Entre Ríos and Santa Fe, then emptying into the Río de la Plata....
, the Matschwitz canal, a.o. From 1910 till 1913 Ackermans & van Haaren built a 1150 m long tunnel in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, supplying water from the Rio de la Plata
Río de la Plata
The Río de la Plata —sometimes rendered River Plate in British English and the Commonwealth, and occasionally rendered [La] Plata River in other English-speaking countries—is the river and estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River on the border between Argentina and...
. Other Latin American countries where Ackermans & van Haaren was active before the First World War include Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
, where the company built the port of Montevideo
Montevideo
Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...
and carried out gravel
Gravel
Gravel is composed of unconsolidated rock fragments that have a general particle size range and include size classes from granule- to boulder-sized fragments. Gravel can be sub-categorized into granule and cobble...
dredging near Colón
Colón
Colón is a Spanish and Portuguese surname, comparable to the Italian and Portuguese Colombo . It may refer to:People:* Cristóbal Colón, the Spanish language name for the explorer Christopher Columbus...
, and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
where 8.5 million m³ were dredged in the port of Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...
between 1908 and 1916.)
In the Russian town of Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
Ackermans & van Haaren built the military harbour, known as Emperor Peter the Great, between 1913 and 1917. In 1916 the company started construction of docks for the Russian navy at Sveaborg near Helsingfors, currently named Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
, the capital of Finland. In the Interbellum DEME-companies built the new Baltic
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
port of Gdynia
Gdynia
Gdynia is a city in the Pomeranian Voivodeship of Poland and an important seaport of Gdańsk Bay on the south coast of the Baltic Sea.Located in Kashubia in Eastern Pomerania, Gdynia is part of a conurbation with the spa town of Sopot, the city of Gdańsk and suburban communities, which together...
for which a total of 36 million m³ was dredged in what Richardson calls "quite heroic circumstances." In the mid 1930's DEME-companies were at work in the Persian port of Now-Chahr and in Pnom Penh, the capital of then French protectorate of Cambodia. where Ackermans & van Haaren
Ackermans & van Haaren
Ackermans & van Haaren N.V. is a Belgian holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is active in four key sectors: dredging and construction, real estate, financial services, and private equity...
's flagship Antwerpen III was assigned for dredging the Mekong
Mekong
The Mekong is a river that runs through China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. It is the world's 10th-longest river and the 7th-longest in Asia. Its estimated length is , and it drains an area of , discharging of water annually....
river.
Richardson (page 14) claims that "the maritime history of France may be written by way of the involvement of Ackermans & van Haaren in building and dredging its Atlantic and Mediterranean ports". In particular, DEME-companies have been involved in all successive phases of the extension of the Port of Le Havre
Port of Le Havre
The Port of Le Havre, Port Autonome du Havre, is the Port and port authority of the Normandy city of Le Havre, France.The port of Le Havre consists of a series of canal-like docks, the Canal de Tancarville and the Grand Canal du Havre, that connect Le Havre to the Seine, close to the Pont de...
since 1904 - the latest phase being Le Havre
Le Havre
Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total...
Port 2000.
Another DEME operating company, Baggerwerken Decloedt & Zoon, has been involved for more than one century with dredging the maritime access channels to the Belgian sea ports. Among the company's early assignments in Asia, three projects stand out: construction of the port of Bluff
Bluff, New Zealand
Bluff is a town and seaport in the Southland region, on the southern coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It is the southern-most town in New Zealand and, despite Slope Point being further to the south, is colloquially used to refer to the southern extremity of the country...
on New Zealand's South Island
South Island
The South Island is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand, the other being the more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean...
between October 1956 and October 1960 (in a joint-venture with another constituent company of DEME, Société Générale de Dragage/Algemene Baggermaarschappij); the very first reclamation in Malaysia's Port Klang
Port Klang
Port Klang is a town and the main gateway by sea into Malaysia. Colonially known as Port Swettenham, it is also the location of the largest and busiest port in the country. As such, its economic progress has been greatly influenced by the port activities in its area...
; and the 1969-1970 extension of the first runway on Kingsford-Smith Airport in Sydney (In 1994 DEME also built the parallel runway, which equally extends on reclaimed land in Botany Bay
Botany Bay
Botany Bay is a bay in Sydney, New South Wales, a few kilometres south of the Sydney central business district. The Cooks River and the Georges River are the two major tributaries that flow into the bay...
).
Assignments in the 2000s
In the first decade of the 21st century global contracting at DEME stood at record levels. Driven by the constant need for new infrastructure, population growth, hunger for energy, climate changeClimate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
, expanding maritime trade, further containerisation and a dramatic increase of scale - both in navigation and port facilities, the demand for capital and maintenance dredging, land reclamation and port construction on the five continents generated ocean engineering
Offshore construction
Offshore construction is the installation of structures and facilities in a marine environment, usually for the production and transmission of electricity, oil, gas and other resources....
projects on an unsurpassed scale.
DEME continued maintenance dredging throughout the decade in the Schelde access channel to Antwerp; the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
access lanes to the Belgian sea ports; the Elbe
Elbe
The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...
river between Cuxhaven and Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
in Germany; the Orinoco
Orinoco
The Orinoco is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes called the Orinoquia, covers , with 76.3% of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia...
river in Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
; the mouths of the Niger Delta
Niger Delta
The Niger Delta, the delta of the Niger River in Nigeria, is a densely populated region sometimes called the Oil Rivers because it was once a major producer of palm oil...
in Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, a.o.
On the five continents, the company was active with capital dredging, land reclamation and port construction. In France, DEME companies completed the Port 2000 extension project in the Port of Le Havre
Port of Le Havre
The Port of Le Havre, Port Autonome du Havre, is the Port and port authority of the Normandy city of Le Havre, France.The port of Le Havre consists of a series of canal-like docks, the Canal de Tancarville and the Grand Canal du Havre, that connect Le Havre to the Seine, close to the Pont de...
. The €218 million contract involved a total dredged volume of over 45 million m³; construction of 10 km of breakwaters; and 78 ha of land reclamation
Land reclamation
Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, is the process to create new land from sea or riverbeds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamation ground or landfill.- Habitation :...
. Marine works were executed in tides of up to 8 m and strong current
Ocean current
An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of ocean water generated by the forces acting upon this mean flow, such as breaking waves, wind, Coriolis effect, cabbeling, temperature and salinity differences and tides caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon and the Sun...
s of up to 5 knots. On the Mediterranean coast of France, DEME finished the Fos2XL extension at Fos-sur-Mer
Fos-sur-Mer
Fos-sur-Mer is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France.-Geography:Fos-sur-Mer is situated about north west of Marseille, on the Mediterranean coast, and to the west of the Étang de Berre. The city has of sand beach.-Population:...
. The €400 million contract was awarded by the Port of Marseille Authority (PMA) to a consortium in which DEME-companies carried out the dredging and marine works.
DEME executed other major port construction and extension projects in the decade. In Vuosaari
Vuosaari
Vuosaari is a neighbourhood in the City of Helsinki, Finland. It is located by the sea in East Helsinki, and with its area of 15.38 km² is geographically the largest district in the city. It also has two Helsinki Metro stations, Rastila and Vuosaari...
, Finland, the company was involved in dredging hard rock for the construction of a new container terminal
Container terminal
A container terminal is a facility where cargo containers are transshipped between different transport vehicles, for onward transportation. The transshipment may be between container ships and land vehicles, for example trains or trucks, in which case the terminal is described as a maritime...
. In Sepetiba
Sepetiba
Sepetiba is a neighborhood in the western zone of Rio de Janeiro, surrounded by Santa Cruz and Guaratiba, and by the Sepetiba Bay. It occupies an area of 1,162.13 ha, and has a population of 35,892 .The origin of the name Sepetiba is the Tupi, which has the word "Sipitiba" as an alternative and...
and Itaguaí
Itaguaí
Itaguaí is a municipality located in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro. Its population was 93,662 and its area is 272 km². The city was founded in 1688....
, both in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, DEME's brand-new TSHD Breydel dredged the access channel and a basin for port extensions. In Dhamra in the state of Orissa
Orissa
Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...
on the eastern coast of India, DEME deepened a 19 km long access channel and reclaimed 130ha for a new port, assigning a.o. a water injection dredger. The €100 million contract in Dhamra was executed by International Seaport Dredging (ISD), in which DEME is partnering with the Indian company Larsen & Toubro
Larsen & Toubro
Larsen & Toubro Limited is an Indian multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Mumbai, India. The company has four main business sectors: technology, engineering, construction and manufacturing. L&T has an international presence, with a global spread of offices and factories, further...
. Since 2005 and into the next decade, DEME has been active in four successive phases with construction of the Russian port of Ust-Luga
Ust-Luga
Ust-Luga is a settlement and railway station in Kingiseppsky District of Leningrad Oblast, Russia, situated on the Luga River near its entry into the Luga Bay of the Gulf of Finland, about west of St. Petersburg....
at 120 km west of Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
. Ust-Luga
Ust-Luga
Ust-Luga is a settlement and railway station in Kingiseppsky District of Leningrad Oblast, Russia, situated on the Luga River near its entry into the Luga Bay of the Gulf of Finland, about west of St. Petersburg....
will be the final point of the Second Baltic Pipeline. On a visit at Ust-Luga in January 2006, then Russian president Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
declared that the new port was "extremely important for us. It is one of the largest infrastructure projects of the decade.”
In the Gulf
Arab states of the Persian Gulf
"Arab states of the Persian Gulf" or "Arab Persian Gulf states" or "Persian Gulf Arab states" or "Arabic Persian Gulf states" or "Arab States of The Gulf", are terms that refer to the six Arab states of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, bordering the Persian Gulf....
state of Qatar
Qatar
Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...
DEME delivered the artificial island Pearl of the Gulf ahead of schedule. This project, designed in the form of a seahorse
Seahorse
Seahorses compose the fish genus Hippocampus within the family Syngnathidae, in order Syngnathiformes. Syngnathidae also includes the pipefishes. "Hippocampus" comes from the Ancient Greek hippos meaning "horse" and kampos meaning “sea monster”.There are nearly 50 species of seahorse...
, called for the excavation of approximately 18 million m³ of material, reclamation of an area of approximately 4.2 million m², around 180,000 m³ of concrete quay walls, and approximately 45 linear kilometers of rock revetment
Revetment
Revetments, or revêtements , have a variety of meanings in architecture, engineering and art history. In stream restoration, river engineering or coastal management, they are sloping structures placed on banks or cliffs in such a way as to absorb the energy of incoming water...
and sandy beaches. The residential and touristic development project takes into account the future sea level rise for one hundred years to come.
Together with its partners United Development Company (UDC) and the Qatari government, since 2004 working together in Middle East Dredging Company (QDC, later MedCo), DEME created a 22 km² platform for the new Doha
Doha
Doha is the capital city of the state of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf, it had a population of 998,651 in 2008, and is also one of the municipalities of Qatar...
airport, which required 62 million m³ of sand and rock to be removed of which about half was reclaimed from the sea.
On 4 April 2008 the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) awarded the contract to dredge the Pacific sea entrance of the Panama Canal
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
to DEME operating company Dredging International. The USD177.5 million project widened the Canal's 14 km approach-, access- and navigation channels to a minimum of 218m and deepened them to a maximum level of minus 15.5m. DEME removed a total of 9.07 million m³, including an important volume of hard rock that was broken up with drilling and blasting. Dredging operations took place in the midst of transiting traffic and close to the intensive port activity at Baldoa and Rodman. A follow-on contract involved dredging and deepening at the Rodman quay of PSA Panama International Terminal. In the frame of ACP's Fresh Water Dredging and Excavation Project for the Canal Expansion, Panama Canal Authority further awarded a USD 40 million contract to DEME for widening and deepening the existing navigational channel by dredging some 4.6 million m³ in the northernmost reaches of the Gatun Lake
Gatun Lake
Gatun Lake is a large artificial lake situated in the Republic of Panama; it forms a major part of the Panama Canal, carrying ships for of their transit across the Isthmus of Panama....
.
In the decade, offshore assignments by Tideway Offshore Contractors included trench dredging, construction of landfalls, and protection and stabilisation of the Enagás
Enagás
Enagás, S.A. is a Spanish energy company which owns and operates the nation's gas grid. The firm also owns and operates three liquefied natural gas regasification terminals in the country, at Huelva, Barcelona and Cartagena. A fourth, at the port of El Musel, is currently being constructed and is...
submarine Balearic
Balearic Islands
The Balearic Islands are an archipelago of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.The four largest islands are: Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The archipelago forms an autonomous community and a province of Spain with Palma as the capital...
gas pipeline between the Spanish city of Denia
Dénia
Dénia is a city in the province of Alicante, Spain, on the Costa Blanca halfway between Alicante and Valencia, the judicial seat of the comarca of Marina Alta...
and the Balearic Islands of Ibiza
Ibiza
Ibiza or Eivissa is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea 79 km off the coast of the city of Valencia in Spain. It is the third largest of the Balearic Islands, an autonomous community of Spain. With Formentera, it is one of the two Pine Islands or Pityuses. Its largest cities are Ibiza...
and Mallorca
Mallorca
Majorca or Mallorca is an island located in the Mediterranean Sea, one of the Balearic Islands.The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Cabrera Archipelago is administratively grouped with Majorca...
, where a depth record was achieved at minus 987m. Tideway had established an earlier depth record in 2000, when stone placement was carried out at a depth of minus 780m at the Malampaya development project in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
. With proprietary fall pipe vessels, Tideway was continuously involved in rock placement and protection works for the oil industry in North Sea oil
North Sea oil
North Sea oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons, comprising liquid oil and natural gas, produced from oil reservoirs beneath the North Sea.In the oil industry, the term "North Sea" often includes areas such as the Norwegian Sea and the area known as "West of Shetland", "the Atlantic Frontier" or "the...
projects. Media reported other assignments, such as the Encana Deep Panuke
Deep Panuke
Deep Panuke is the name of an offshore natural gas field. It is located off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada on the Scotian Shelf. It is currently under development by the EnCana Corporation.-References:*...
project in Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
, Canada, and the P9 project for the Pluto LNG project at Woodside, Australia. At the end of 2007 Tideway completed installation of the 580 km HVDC submarine power cable
Submarine power cable
Submarine power cables are major transmission cables for carrying electric power below the surface of the water. These are called "submarine" because they usually carry electric power beneath salt water but it is also possible to use submarine power cables beneath fresh water...
known as NorNed
NorNed
NorNed is a long HVDC submarine power cable between Feda in Norway and the seaport of Eemshaven in the Netherlands, which interconnects both countries' electricity grids. It is the longest submarine power cable in the world. Budgeted at €550 million, and completed at a cost of €600m, the...
, which links the electricity grids of Norway and the Netherlands.
DEME companies executed the full range of marine works during construction of the first phase of C-
Power's Thorntonbank Wind Farm
Thorntonbank Wind Farm
The Thorntonbank Wind Farm is an offshore wind farm, off the Belgian coast, in water ranging from deep. Electricity production started in early 2009, with a capacity of 30 MW...
, including offshore soil investigation, transport and placement of the gravity-based structures, erosion
Erosion
Erosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...
protection, cable-laying, directional drilling
Directional drilling
Directional drilling is the practice of drilling non-vertical wells. It can be broken down into three main groups: Oilfield Directional Drilling, Utility Installation Directional Drilling Directional drilling (or slant drilling) is the practice of drilling non-vertical wells. It can be broken down...
, a.o. DEME controlled Scaldis Salvage & Marine Contractors was involved in the successful wreck removal of the MV Tricolor
MV Tricolor
MV Tricolor was a 50,000 tonne Norwegian-flagged vehicle carrier built in 1987, notable for having been involved in three English Channel collisions within a fortnight.-Collision and sinking, 14 December 2002:...
car carrier, lost at sea off Dunkirk
In the field of environmental remediation assignments, DEME Environmental Contractors (DEC)
in its home country Belgium executed the remediation of acid tar basins for Total
Total S.A.
Total S.A. is a French multinational oil company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world.Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and production to power generation, transportation, refining, petroleum product marketing, and...
in Ertvelde
Ertvelde
Ertvelde is a village of the Belgian municipality of Evergem.Eddy Wally used to have his legendary show venue in the village-center, called "Paris, Las Vegas"....
; the remediation of the former Carcoke Coking Works site in Zeebrugge
Zeebrugge
Zeebrugge is a village on the coast of Belgium and a subdivision of Bruges, for which it is the modern port. Zeebrugge serves as both the international port of Bruges-Zeebrugge and a seafront resort with hotels, cafés, a marina and a beach.-Location:...
; and the remediation and redevelopment
Redevelopment
Redevelopment is any new construction on a site that has pre-existing uses.-Description:Variations on redevelopment include:* Urban infill on vacant parcels that have no existing activity but were previously developed, especially on Brownfield land, such as the redevelopment of an industrial site...
of the 42ha brownfield 't Eilandje in Zwijnaarde
Zwijnaarde
Zwijnaarde is a village in the municipality of Ghent, Belgium. It is known for its fair and its Zwijntjes beer. A cluster of biotech companies is located at the Zwijnaarde science park, with biotech companies such as Innogenetics, and DevGen....
. Abroad, DEME Environmental Contractors were involved in the remediation works at the cyanide
Cyanide
A cyanide is a chemical compound that contains the cyano group, -C≡N, which consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Cyanides most commonly refer to salts of the anion CN−. Most cyanides are highly toxic....
infested former Gas Works site in Dublin Dockland, Ireland; at the Avenue Coking Works site near Chesterfield
Chesterfield
Chesterfield is a market town and a borough of Derbyshire, England. It lies north of Derby, on a confluence of the rivers Rother and Hipper. Its population is 70,260 , making it Derbyshire's largest town...
, UK; and the decontamination
Decontamination
Decontamination is the process of cleansing the human body to remove contamination by hazardous materials including chemicals, radioactive substances, and infectious material...
of the London Olympics 2012 site in Stratford
Stratford, London
Stratford is a place in the London Borough of Newham, England. It is located east northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically an agrarian settlement in the ancient parish of West Ham, which transformed into an industrial suburb...
. In the 2000s DEME Environmental Contractors (DEC) were also active in Sweden with cleaning-up the mercury
Mercury (element)
Mercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...
contamination in the Svartsjö lakes near Hultsfred
Hultsfred
Hultsfred is a locality and the seat of Hultsfred Municipality, Kalmar County, Sweden with 5,305 inhabitants in 2005. It is best known for the Hultsfred Festival.- References :...
; removing mercury and dioxine from a site in Bengtsfors
Bengtsfors
Bengtsfors is a locality and the seat of Bengtsfors Municipality, Västra Götaland County, Sweden. It had 3,194 inhabitants in 2005.- References :...
; and further in Favernik, Söderhamn
Söderhamn
Söderhamn is a locality and the seat of Söderhamn Municipality, Gävleborg County, Sweden with 12,056 inhabitants in 2005.The most popular tourist attraction is Oskarsborg, a tower built in 1895 on the top of a hill close to the town centre. The tower is built as a memorial over a visit of king...
and Gävle
Gävle
Gävle is a city in Sweden, the seat of Gävle Municipality and the capital of Gävleborg County. It had 71,033 inhabitants in 12/31 2010. It is the oldest city in the historical Norrland , having received its charter in 1446 from Christopher of Bavaria.-History:It is believed that the name Gävle...
.
Assignments in 2010
On 16 March 2010 DEME started major dredging works for DP World's London GatewayLondon Gateway
London Gateway is a major new development under construction on the north bank of the River Thames in Thurrock, Essex. It comprises a large new deep-water port, which will be able to handle the biggest container ships in the world, as well as one of Europe’s largest logistics parks, providing...
, the UK's new deep sea port and logistics park at 25 miles east of Central London on the river Thames.
DEME is dredging a 300m wide channel to a depth between 14.6m and 16.5m while the estuary is currently around 11m deep. Over a distance of 100 km to the sea some 29 million m³ will be dredged; in addition DEME is reclaiming 18 million m³ in the Thames. The 400 million pound contract has to be finished by mid 2014. For the civilian works, DEME is teaming with British contractor Laing O'Rourke
Laing O'Rourke
Laing O'Rourke is a multinational construction company headquartered in Dartford, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1978....
.
With the formal delivery on 31 March 2010, DEME completed the widening and deepening works in the port of Durban
Durban
Durban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in South Africa. It forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famous for being the busiest port in South Africa. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism...
, South Africa that had begun in mid 2007. The existing northern breakwater
Breakwater (structure)
Breakwaters are structures constructed on coasts as part of coastal defence or to protect an anchorage from the effects of weather and longshore drift.-Purposes of breakwaters:...
was demolished and rebuilt; the existing southern breakwater was strengthened; the port entrance channel was widened from 120m to 220m; and deepened from 12.8m to 19m in the outer channel and 17m in the inner port. A total of more than 10 million m³ of material was dredged, part of which was used for the foundation and reinforcement of the breakwaters. Apart from the mega-dipper Pinocchio and two split barges, DEME assigned the trailing suction hopper dredgers Marieke, Krankeloon, Orwell and Pallieter to the €220 million project. DEME was the managing partner in a consortium
Consortium
A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal....
that included South African civilian contractor Group Five.
In the Middle East DEME is executing the dredging and reclamation package for the Ruwais
Ruwais
Al Ruwais is a town located some 240 kilometers west of Abu Dhabi city. The Ruwais industrial and housing complex has been developed by ADNOC as a major contributor to the national economy and represents a series of multi-million-dollar investments by the company...
Refinery Expansion project of Takreer in Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi , literally Father of Gazelle, is the capital and the second largest city of the United Arab Emirates in terms of population and the largest of the seven member emirates of the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi lies on a T-shaped island jutting into the Persian Gulf from the central western...
. The work was awarded to Dredging International in May 2009 and started on 7 June 2009. A total of 42 million m³ is being dredged, pumped and reclaimed by heavy-duty cutter suction dredger Al Mahar and trailing suction hopper dredgers.
In Latin America DEME is (a.o.) active in a major remediation project in the Port of Santos
Port of Santos
The Port of Santos is located in the city of Santos, Brazil. As of 2006, it is the busiest container port in Latin America. It possesses a wide variety of cargo handling terminals - solid and liquid bulk, containers and general loads. It is Brazil's leading port in container traffic...
, Brazil. The €75 million turnkey project calls for the remediation of the illegal dump site Lixao da Alemoa at the edge of a bay. A total of 680.000 m³ of domestic waste and industrial waste
Industrial waste
Industrial waste is a type of waste produced by industrial activity, such as that of factories, mills and mines. It has existed since the outset of the industrial revolution....
are being processed on an area covering 45 ha, where Brasil Terminal Portuario is building a container terminal
Container terminal
A container terminal is a facility where cargo containers are transshipped between different transport vehicles, for onward transportation. The transshipment may be between container ships and land vehicles, for example trains or trucks, in which case the terminal is described as a maritime...
. The major part of it will be recycled and reused; only a fraction of what is left over, between 10.000 and 50.000 m³, will have to be stored. DEME executes this contract through its subsidiary DEME Environmental Contractors (DEC), which also arranged project financing. The Santos
Port of Santos
The Port of Santos is located in the city of Santos, Brazil. As of 2006, it is the busiest container port in Latin America. It possesses a wide variety of cargo handling terminals - solid and liquid bulk, containers and general loads. It is Brazil's leading port in container traffic...
contract was said to be "a breakthrough for DEME in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
. During a princely mission to Brazil, Belgian crown prince
Crown Prince
A crown prince or crown princess is the heir or heiress apparent to the throne in a royal or imperial monarchy. The wife of a crown prince is also titled crown princess....
Prince Philippe, Duke of Brabant visited the DEC turnkey project in Santos.
Together with its partner Larsen & Toubro
Larsen & Toubro
Larsen & Toubro Limited is an Indian multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Mumbai, India. The company has four main business sectors: technology, engineering, construction and manufacturing. L&T has an international presence, with a global spread of offices and factories, further...
in International Seaport Dredging (ISD), DEME in 2010 finished deepening of a 10 km access channel, turning basin and berthing foreground in the port of Kakinada
Kakinada
Kakinada is a city and a municipal corporation in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is located east of the state capital, Hyderabad. It is also the headquarters of East Godavari district. It is nicknamed "Fertilizer City" , "Pensioner's Paradise" and "Second Madras"...
on the eastern coast of India, state of Andra Pradesh. Dredging a total of 6 million m³ deepened the sea port from minus 11.5m to a depth between minus 13.5 and minus 14.5m. A second contract for dredging another 5 million m³ was to be completed by March 2011. Since 1999 DEME has already executed several capital dredging campaigns at Kakinada, both directly. and through International Seaport Dredging (ISD).
On 18 August 2010 DEME was awarded a €105 million contract for dredging and reclamation works to prepare the Imeretinskaya lowland area at Sochi
Sochi
Sochi is a city in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, situated just north of Russia's border with the de facto independent republic of Abkhazia, on the Black Sea coast. Greater Sochi sprawls for along the shores of the Black Sea near the Caucasus Mountains...
, Russia, where the Olympic Village
Olympic Village
An Olympic Village is an accommodation centre built for an Olympic Games, usually within an Olympic Park or elsewhere in a host city. Olympic Villages are built to house all participating athletes, as well as officials, athletic trainers, and other staff. Since the Munich Massacre at the 1972...
for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games will be built. In an execution period of maximum 14 months, a total of 8 million m³ sand must be dredged and transported over a distance of 120 km to reclaim a 412ha swamp
Swamp
A swamp is a wetland with some flooding of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water. A swamp generally has a large number of hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodical inundation. The two main types of swamp are "true" or swamp...
area to 2.5m above the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
zero level. DEME has assigned its TSHDs Brabo and Nile River to the Sochi
Sochi
Sochi is a city in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, situated just north of Russia's border with the de facto independent republic of Abkhazia, on the Black Sea coast. Greater Sochi sprawls for along the shores of the Black Sea near the Caucasus Mountains...
project.
In Hayle
Hayle
Hayle is a small town, civil parish and cargo port in west Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated at the mouth of the Hayle River and is approximately seven miles northeast of Penzance...
, off the coast of Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
, UK, DEME subsidiary Tideway Offshore Contractors was involved in precision rock placement for protection of the wave hub
Wave hub
The Wave Hub is a wave power research project. The project is developed approximately off Hayle, on the north coast of Cornwall, United Kingdom. The hub is a 'socket' sitting on the seabed for wave energy converters to be plugged into; it will have connections to it from arrays of four kinds of...
and a 16 km power cable
Power cable
A power cable is an assembly of two or more electrical conductors, usually held together with an overall sheath. The assembly is used for transmission of electrical power...
, linking the tidal energy park with land. Tideway's fall pipe vessel Rollingstone placed some 100.000 tons at a depth between 25m and 35m by way of digital terrain modelling and a remotely operated vehicle
Remotely operated vehicle
A remotely operated vehicle is a tethered underwater vehicle. They are common in deepwater industries such as offshore hydrocarbon extraction. An ROV may sometimes be called a remotely operated underwater vehicle to distinguish it from remote control vehicles operating on land or in the air. ROVs...
(ROV).
Investment programme
DEME invests some €200 million per year in construction of new vessels. Under the current investment programme 2008-2012, some fifteen major vessels will be launched for an estimated value of €1.26 billion. By the end of 2010, seven have already been launched; eight vessels are under construction. The latter include the 11,650 m³ trailing suction hopper dredger Breughel and the 28,000 kW cutter suction dredger Ambiorix, a sister ship of d'Artagnan. Other ships to be commissioned before 2012 are the 5,000 m³ gravel dredger Victor Horta; the 19,000 tons fallpipe vessel Flintstone; the self-propelled sea-going dredgers Al Jarraf and Amazone, each with a total installed power of 12,860 kW; the mega-trailer Congo River which has a hopper capacity of 30,000 tonnes; and the jack-up Neptune.Preceding the current programme, ten major dredgers were added to the DEME fleet under the investment programme 2002-2007. This included the world's largest heavy-duty sea-going cutter suction dredger, the 28,000 kW d'Artagnan. With the construction of the Pearl River in 1994, DEME became a trendsetter for what is now "considered as the first 'jumbo' trailer suction dredger"
On August 1, 2002, the enlargement of Pearl River was started in Singapore. In the process the hopper capacity of Pearl River was increased from 17,000 m³ to 24,146 m³. Moreover, a large deep dredging installation for the Pearl River was built in, which allows this jumbo trailer to dredge to depths of 120 m.
Innovation
According to Mort J. Richardson in The Dynamics of Dredging Ackermans & van HaarenAckermans & van Haaren
Ackermans & van Haaren N.V. is a Belgian holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is active in four key sectors: dredging and construction, real estate, financial services, and private equity...
held a leading position in technological innovation, from the very beginning. In 1895 Ackermans & van Haaren
Ackermans & van Haaren
Ackermans & van Haaren N.V. is a Belgian holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is active in four key sectors: dredging and construction, real estate, financial services, and private equity...
was at the cradle of hydraulic dredging techniques and successfully designed a suction dredger, capable of unloading by its own. In the same year, a first vessel of that type was built and christended as Schelde II. Société Générale de Dragage/Algemene Baggermaatschappij (SGD) realized the very first application of a submersible pump
Submersible pump
A submersible pump is a device which has a hermetically sealed motor close-coupled to the pump body. The whole assembly is submerged in the fluid to be pumped. The main advantage of this type of pump is that it prevents pump cavitation, a problem associated with a high elevation difference between...
in dredging, when such a device was developed and fixed on the drag head of TSHD Maas. At the time of her commissioning in September 1994 DEME's 17,000 m³ flagship
Flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...
Pearl River became, according to Richardson (p. 11), "the very first suction hopper dredge of a completely new generation - featuring twice as much capacity as its biggest successor." In 2005 DEME's French subsidiary
Subsidiary
A subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock. The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a...
Société de Dragage International (SDI) launched the world's largest heavy-duty and ocean-going cutter suction dredger d'Artagnan (28,200 kW installed power).
Innovative methods that are aiming at improving the dredging process, include DEME's proprietary DRACULA technique which uses high-pressure waterjets to excavate seabed material. DRACULA is an acronym for "Dredging, And Cutting Using Liquid Action." Various improvements of navigation- and dredging software have led DEME to develop and practise the one man-operated bridge. An innovative purpose built drill barge with ten drilling towers, called Yuan Dong 007, was specifically designed and constructed for the 2009 expansion project of the Panama Canal
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
. The performance and the efficiency of the Hong Kong built drill barge, was said to have been DEME's secret weapon and a decisive factor in winning the 2008 contract for deepening and widening of the Pacific side of the Canal.
Shareholders
DEME is owned, on a 50/50 base, by two publicly listed companies, quoted on the Euronext Brussels exchange: the investment company Ackermans & van HaarenAckermans & van Haaren
Ackermans & van Haaren N.V. is a Belgian holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is active in four key sectors: dredging and construction, real estate, financial services, and private equity...
and CFE
CFE
CFE may refer to:* Campaign for Fiscal Equity, a non-profit organization which advocates for funding of education in New York City* Campaign for Free Education, a group in the National Union of Students opposed to tuition fees...
. The latter is a daughter of the French construction group Vinci. Ackermans & van Haaren and CFE have concluded a shareholders agreement which was renewed for a new term of five years on 6 March 2007.