Three-year Bremen lock improvements complete

The most recent job in the modernisation of the port’s Oslebshauser Lock has been the overhaul of a 36m long and 16.7m high reserve gate at Fassmer Werft on the Weser and the lifting out of the 800 ton unit using the floating crane ENAK.

After waiting for high tide, the gate was transported the short distance upstream to the Oslebshauser Lock. The port of Bremen is some 60kms inland from its giant container-handling sister port of Bremerhaven on the North Sea.

The 249m long, 48m wide Oslebshauser Lock is at the entrance to Bremen’s busy Industriehafen – home to some 50 handling and logistic concerns employing some 3,000 people. The lock, widened in 1981, has been in operation since 1910 and is used annually by around 1,300 sea-going ships.

Lock renovation work since 2017 by management company bremenports has covered four projects involving three Oslebshauser Lock gates. The work has been aimed at modernising the old lock while improving its ability to protect the Industriehafen against the flood level increases which are being predicted for the coming years.

The latest reserve gate project lasted seven months and cost €4.2 million.

It was reported by bremenports that repairs were carried out and the gate’s dam wall heightened to improve flood protection. Technical equipment was relocated and a new tank measuring system for the gate’s ballast water tanks was also installed. According to spokesman Holger Bruns bremenports was now building a new switching plant with modern control technology to create a lock control system which would also be capable of operating port pumping plant.

The previous three Oslebshauser lock gate improvement projects managed by bremenports have involved lock outer and inner gates and have also covered repairs, maintenance and flood protection improvements. Costing a total €7.6 million those jobs were all carried out at Bremerhaven yards and involved Weser transport of 60 kms between Bremen and Bremerhaven.

Just how vital lock overhaul and renovation is in north Germany has been demonstrated dramatically lately by collisions on the Kiel Canal and by regular renovation work on locks in Bremerhaven and other major ports.

By Tom Todd