Italian dredger builder returns to Seawork

Last month saw Italdraghe’s latest SGT 350 dredger delivered in ready to assemble road transportable sections to Spa Gemhy (Gènèrale Entreprise Maritime & Hydraulique) located in Oran, on Algeria’s northwest Mediterranean coast.

This dredger will be used near Mostaganem, 350 kms west of Algiers, for removing sand and gravel to create a landfall trench for over 1,800m of intake and output pipe destined to transport 200,000 m3 of seawater per day to a desalinisation plant where, by the process of reverse osmosis, it will be converted into drinking water to be supplied across the whole of the country.

This purpose built 30m long cutter suction dredger, supplied complete with spuds and discharge pipeline, has been designed to dredge down to a depth of 12m.

At the heart of the dredger is an Italdraghe SGT 350 N horizontal axis dredging pump able to handle abrasive solids of up to 150mm. With a suction diameter of 450mm and a delivery diameter of 350mm, this hard wearing pump features abrasive resistant casings and jackets manufactured from exceptionally tough cast iron with a hardness of 550-650 Brinnel.

Dredger performance is optimized thanks to the installation of two engines; a Cummins KTA 38-M0 with continuous power of 800hp at 1,800 rpm and an Iveco N67 280 auxiliary engine, providing heavy duty power of 230hp at 2,800 rpm.

Keeping operator comfort in mind, the dredger was designed with a spacious fully insulated and air conditioned cabin which also affords important all round visibility. The on board instrumentation includes joystick commands and the very latest DGPS positioning system.

This made to measure dredger is one of a long line of cutter suction dredgers that Italdraghe has delivered over the decades to the increasingly demanding African market. A number of larger cutter suction dredgers destined for Nigeria and Angola are already on order and are due for delivery this summer.

As Italdraghe’s newly appointed UK representative, Andrew Scott will be on hand at Seawork 2009 to field all dredging enquiries.