Van Oord wins contract to deepen Niger river

The river must be made navigable during the dry and wet seasons from Warri at the Atlantic coast to the train terminal in Baro in Central Nigeria.

President Yar Adua of Nigeria has announced that Nigeria’s economy will rank in the top 20 of the world by the year 2020. In order to realise this national ambition the government has launched seven spearhead policies and one special project, a navigation channel in the River Niger.

Van Oord will dredge a 226km stretch of the river. The project is being split into two phases and will start in September 2009. The first phase comprises capital dredging, the construction of groynes and the installation of hundreds of navigation buoys. More than 500,000 tonnes of rock have to be handled. The second phase will consist of two years of maintenance dredging after completion of the first phase.

Two cutter suction dredgers will be working together on the project. Van Oord has been active in Nigeria for many decades and has its own yard with equipment stationed in the country.