Jan De Nul launches ‘Zheng He’ in Croatia
'Zheng He' heads down the slipway at Pula in Croatia on Saturday.
Belgian dredging giant Jan De Nul continued its major fleet expansion on Saturday with the launch of the cutter suction dredger 'Zheng He' at the Uljanik Brodogradiliste d.d. Shipyard in Pula, Croatia.
The Zheng He is a sister vessel of the Ibn Battuta, launched in August 2009, and is the second of four large self-propelled cutter suction dredgers, each with a total installed power of 23,520 kW, built by the Pula yard. The other two are the Fernão de Magalhães and the JDN8067. All four are part of the Jan De Nul Group‘s ambitious investment programme stretching from 2007 into next year and worth €1.8bn. The keel laying of the sister vessel Fernão de Magalhães was celebrated in Pula on the same day. The Zheng He will be delivered later this year, with the Fernão de Magalhães and the JDN8067 scheduled for completion over the course of this year and next.
Jan De Nul‘s company policy is to focus on investment in new vessels and equipment. The Group‘s own Design and Engineering division designs new vessels in house, which are then built in various shipyards all over the world. Jan De Nul Group also delivers the required specific dredging equipment to the relevant shipyard, which is designed and engineered within the company and then fabricated and assembled in the company‘s workshops at Aalst in Belgium. The fleet now consists of 42 vessels, with another 20 new vessels planned.
The CSD Zheng He is the first vessel to be launched this year. In the course of 2009, Jan De Nul Group launched 12 vessels,of which two were in Spain (the fallpipe and mining vessel Simon Stevin and the 46,000 m³ trailing suction hopper dredger Leiv Eiriksson), one in Croatia (the self-propelled cutter suction dredger Ibn Battuta) and nine in China, comprising one split hopper dredger, five split barges and three workboats.
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