Picture of the Day: Boskalis’ Phoenix 1 at New Suez

The Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), Dredging Suez Canal, has just posted on its official facebook page this beautiful photo of Boskalis’ heavy-duty, rock cutting, stationary dredger Phoenix 1, working on the New Suez Canal dredging project.

Boskalis is a member of the consortium that will be executing most of this development program, worth USD 1.5 billion, in an extremely short period of time.

“The New Suez Canal will, in part, be built parallel to the current canal. In other sections, the work will include widening and deepening the existing canal. A section of approximately 75 kilometers will be widened and deepened to -24 meters,” said Bas van Bemmelen, director of the Dredging Division’s Area Middle.

“Our consortium will be dredging 180 million cubic meters in less than one year. By comparison, the Maasvlakte 2 project involved 240 million cubic meters in three years. The idea is that ships will be sailing through the new canal as from September of this year,” he added.

This scheme is part of the Suez Canal mega project, which includes the development of several seaports in the three governorates bordering the canal, Suez, Ismailia and Port Said, in addition to a seaport in the South Sinai city of Nuweiba and the development of Sharm Al-Sheikh airport.