Channel deepening at Vuosaari

The port of Vuosaari located to the east of the city was established in 2008 and is the main cargo centre in Helsinki. It serves as both a major ro-ro port as well as being the main container terminal. When it was established the depth in the approach channel to the harbour was set at 11 metres, a depth which served most of the container and ro-ro ships operating in Baltic waters at that time. Now with the increase in the size of ships, particularly container ships the port authorities have awarded a contract for the deepening of the approach channel to 13 metres mainly to enable the port to accommodate these larger container ships.

This deepening is a major undertaking and involves both dredging and rock blasting. The rock blasting will be focussed on two pinch points in the approach channel and involves the drilling and blasting of 0.8 million cubic metres of rock. For this work Boskalis will deploy a drilling barge and a grab dredger. For the softer material which is mainly clay and moraine material and which mainly lies in the harbour area Boskalis will deploy two large backhoe dredgers as well as various hopper barges. In total this second operation will involve the removal of 1 million cubic metres of material.

A second contract awarded to Boskalis is for the transport of part of the dredged material to a site close to the city centre that is being reclaimed for development. This reclamation work will create 6 hectares of land which will be used for offices and housing for 7000 people in an area known as Hernesaari. The work on both of these contracts will take place over two open ice free seasons with completion scheduled for 2021.

The contracts awarded to Boskalis are priced at €32 million with close to a quarter of this cost being met from EU funding. This development at Vuosaari follows on from the development of the cruise and ferry terminal located close to the city centre which allows passenger and cargo operations to be largely separated.