Ship ahoy!

The work activities required to widen the ship channel in Texas are in full swing. The quay wall has now been completed. Focus is now on excavation of the docking bay, which is the area between the existing ship channel and the port wall. The finally concreted quay wall has a length of roughly 300 m.

Now the existing ship channel must be connected with the port. Approximately 800,000 cubic meters of material (the volume of roughly 320 Olympic-sized swimming pools) must now be removed in order to provide a draft depth of 14 meters for the hulls of the 280-meter-long ships. The material will not be dredged from the bottom of the access channel. It will be pumped through a ship pipeline into large basins on land. The water will flow back into the sea, while sand and clay will be used to construct an embankment on the west side of the works. This perimeter embankment will serve as a sound barrier as well as provide more privacy for the works premises.