This order is the first in a series for JUHU Beach BV, a subsidiary of Marken Dredging which is owned by Germany's Reinhard Wessels. A new client for IHC Merwede, the newly established JUHU Beach is not a dredging contractor but rather, will focus on managing dredgers in ownership.

IHC has also landed a contract to build a stationary cutter suction dredger for Huta Marine Works of Saudi Arabia.

IHC Merwede's president Govert Hamers said, 'Given this growth, we are working hard on expanding production capacity. An important step in the process is the establishment of International Dredgers Heusden (IDH). The goal of IDH is to build ships at appropriate locations outside our own yards, with IHC Merwede being responsible. The sales, design and calculation for the assignments will be done by IHC Merwede. IDH will be responsible for implementing the assignment.'

Another major step in this process is the investment in a new machine factory for strategic dredger parts in Guangzhou in southern China. IHC Merwede already has a factory there for supplying parts. The expansion in activities means that it will invest in this new factory measuring 35,000m². The Rotterdam councillor, Mark Harbers (economy, harbour and the environment) will open the new factory on 3 November.

The new factory emphasises the importance of the Chinese market for IHC Merwede. Specially for China, the company has developed stationary cutter suction dredgers of the IHC 7025MP and IHC 8527MP types, and the vessels are also being built in China. This activity is expanding to such an extent that IHC Merwede recently entered into a joint venture with a Chinese ship yard in Dalian to respond effectively to market demand. The joint venture is known as the IHC (Dalian) Dredging Vessel Technology Development Company Ltd. The same yard in Dalian will also be building four split barges for Van Oord on behalf of IHC Merwede.

Alongside production capacity, IHC Merwede also has its own service centre at Tanggu in China, with service engineers trained in China, its own warehouse for spare parts and a mobile training centre with a simulator for training dredger operators. There was already a service centre in Tianjin.

In Belgrado, IHC Merwede has outsourced the building of hulls for the standard cutter suction dredgers of the Beaver type to a local yard. In time, IHC hopes to enter into a collaboration agreement with the yard for the construction of complete medium sized Beaver cutter suction dredgers. It is possibility that IHC may even build small trailing suction hopper dredgers in Belgrado.

Back in the Netherlands,section construction started at the Heusden location (otherwise known as VSH, the Verenigde Scheepswerf Heusden) a year ago. Four orders have now been received by Heusden for the construction of small or medium sized dredgers.

Work on the completion quay and panel line at IHC's Krimpen aan den IJssel yard in Rotterdam is reaching its final stages and will soon give the company a complete yard in which to build complex vessels up to 38m wide. Also underway is a search for ways of reducing throughput times in order to enhance production capacity even further.