Dutch dredge for St Petersburg terminal
Van Oord in The Netherlands reports that the new Marine Facade passenger terminal on Vasilyevsky Island in St Petersburg, Russia is now up and running. The new passenger terminal will receive cruise ships and ferries.
Van Oord performed all the dredging work for the access canal and harbour basin, having been awarded a contract to do so by the Russian main contractor for the project, Morskoy Fasad. In fulfilling the contract, Van Oord dredged more than 15m cu/m of sand and clay and developed a total of 120 new hectares of land.
The new terminal, which has a capacity of 12,000 passengers a day, has seven piers, five for cruise ships and two for universal traffic, including ferries. A new area is being developed behind the harbour for buildings, including offices and hotels.
More recently, a joint venture between Strukton and Van Oord successfully lowered a new tunnel section into place beneath Amsterdam Central Station. This unique event, lowering the section under the station and positioning it between the micro-tunnelling and sandwich walls, was successfully completed.
The section was sunk using immersion pontoons and was then suspended from the ceiling using suspension cables. The immersion pontoons can now be removed, leaving the tunnel ‘suspended’ in its final position. Work will shortly begin on backfilling around the section.
