Cochin Shipyard to build giant dredger for DCI

The state-run Cochin Shipyard has announced a plan to build a high capacity dredger for Dredging Corporation of India (DCI), worth as much as ₹800 crore ($110 million), with technology and design support from Royal IHC.

The new dredger will have a hopper capacity of 12,000 cubic meters.

This TSHD is going to be the first dredger to be built by Cochin Shipyard at its yard in Cochin following a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with IHC in November last year for collaboration on technology and design for high capacity, complex dredgers.

Regarding this plan, Cochin Shipyard and DCI signed a separate MoU in Delhi today.

At the same event, the Shipyard and Royal IHC formally exchanged the MoU signed in November on the collaboration for building big dredgers in India.

Mr. Marten van den Berg, Ambassador of the Netherlands, Dr. Sanjeev Ranjan IAS, Secretary Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Shri Sanjay Bandopadhyay IAS, Additional Secretary Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Shri Madhu S Nair, Chairman and Managing Director of Cochin Shipyard Limited, Shri Rajesh Thripati, Managing Director of DCI, Smt Mrinalini Kaur Sapra, First Secretary from Embassy of India to the Netherlands, Mr. Joost Geijner, Economic Counsellor Royal Netherlands Embassy, attended the meeting.

A lot of large dredgers run by Indian dredging companies, including Dredging Corporation, were built by Royal IHC.

DCI’s fleet of 10 trailing suction hopper dredgers deliver 70-75% of the annual dredging for major Indian ports. As the step towards meeting the increasing demand for dredgers across the country, DCI plans to expand its fleet with a new 8,000-12,000 cubic meter hopper capacity dredger.