Dutch DBF Terminal Heads for First-Phase Completion

The 800m quay wall, on 10 to 1m of water, stretches the whole width of the Delta peninsula on the eastern ‘short’ side of the ECT Delta Terminal.

It has been built some 75m into the harbour and filled in with 700,000m3 of sand from the future Yangtse Dock in Maasvlakte to create a new site of about 7.5 hectares.

Port spokesman Minco van Heezen told MJ piping and cables as well as paving was now being laid. He said Belgium’s Besix was building the wall, a conventional type with a metal profile plate and hollow pipes filled with concrete. Boskalis had constructed an underwater dam to stabilise the soil close to the base of the quay wall.

ECT expects to mount the first three quay cranes in March 2008 for first phase operation as early as two months after that. The DBF is specially designed for inland and feeder vessels and its built-in flexibility will undoubtedly help reduce some of Rotterdam’s congestion in that sector in recent years.

One of the reasons for the congestion at Delta has been the need for ships with ever increasing volumes to berth longer at deep-sea quays, so keeping feeders and inland barges waiting. A dedicated feeder site will now hopefully solve the congestion while also resulting in a capacity gain for existing terminals of some 880,000 TEU.

First phase capacity at DBF is put at 300,000 TEU, with final capacity tipped at three times that. Final costs are expected to be about ¢ 145 million, of which about a third are for quay and other basic infrastructure.

By Tom Todd