The two day Dredging Days conference opened with a speech by current CEDA President Rewert Wurpts of the Port Authority of Emden in Germany.

Commenting on the current dredging market, he offered encouraging words. 'During the previous Dredging Days in 2003, the situation was more or less alarming. There was no light at the end of the tunnel, no real ray of hope. In the meantime, things have changed. I was happy to learn that order books, especially in the hopper market, are filling up step by step. This keeps CEDA's corporate members hopeful, as well as us. After several years of downturns, the upturns have started and I hope they will continue.'

The keynote speech was given by John Verscheden, vice president and head of government and regulatory affairs for APM Terminals, which manages operations in 35 terminals worldwide from its headquarters in The Hague. The company's current development programme includes ten new container terminals. Discussing the relationship between ports, the shipping industry and dredging, he argued in favour of increased dredged depths for fairways on environmental grounds, as emissions from a fully laden Post-Panamax containership are 26% lower per container than for a smaller, shallower draft Panamax vessel.

The theme of the conference, Dredging: The Extremes, drew numerous papers dealing with the extraordinary demands faced by the dredging industry. The technical sessions provided a vital forum for discussion and exchange of ideas, experience and technology. The variety of interesting subjects discussed, and innovative new ideas put forward, were summarised by Professor Wim Vlasbom of Delft University of Technology and Chairman of the Technical Papers Committee who said, 'The papers presented in this conference clearly show that developments in dredging technology are continuing. Even after the significant enlargements in scale of trailing suction hopper dredgers and the new generation of cutter suction dredgers in recent years, there are still many openings for the innovative use of advances in dredging technology.'

The conference proceedings are available on CD-ROM from www. dredging. org at 60 for CEDA members and 90 for non-members.

MJ Information No: 21327