Steel Piles News

The Port of Brownsville’s Cargo Dock 3 reconstruction project has secured an $11.5 million grant under the Texas Department of Transportation’s (TxDOT) new Maritime Infrastructure Program.On September 28, the Texas Transportation Commission approved $240 million in funding for Texas ports to help increase trade, improve safety, and provide a more robust supply chain for the state and the nation. The Port of Brownsville’s Cargo Dock 3 project is one of 31 projects selected to receive funding.The TxDOT grant will assist in funding the comprehensive overhaul of Cargo Dock 3…

Seemingly overnight, a new structure appeared on San Francisco’s waterfront. Situated at Pier 22½ just behind historic Firehouse 35 and nestled beside the Bay Bridge, this floating building is San Francisco’s new Fire Station 35. The facility is an answer to the city’s long-awaited need for updated fire and marine safety on the Bay.The overnight materialization of Fire Station 35 on San Francisco’s waterfront was due to the method in which it was built. To reduce public impact and avoid disruption along the bustling Embarcadero…

JGC-Fluor joint venture has awarded BJM the contract for the construction of the LNG Canada MOF, a material offloading facility to support the realization of a LNG export facility in Kitimat on the west coast of Canada, British Columbia (approximately 600 km north-west of Vancouver).BJM is a joint venture between BAM International (the operating company of Royal BAM Group active outside Europe), JJM Construction (Canada) and Manson Construction (USA).The project is part of the overall LNG Canada project. The MOF project consists of a 230-metre-long north quay wall and a 260-metre-long west quay wall. Work has already started as of July…

The Hague-based BAM International, together with JJM Construction (Canada) and Manson Construction (USA), has received the full order to build the new Rio Tinto BC Works Terminal A on behalf of LNG Canada.The mobilisation and construction works being carried out by BAM and its partners for the Rio Tinto Terminal A expansion have started. BAM expects to complete this project in Autumn 2020.The project is valued at CAD 135 million, with BAM’s share amounting to 50% and JJM and Manson covering the other 50%. BAM initially announced this contract in October 2017, ahead of final confirmation by LNG Canada.LNG Canada has agreed to extend the existing BC Works Terminal A in exchange for their Terminal B, which handles exports of finished products for Rio Tinto’s ongoing operations.

Construction of a 30-meter-long, purpose-built floating crew transfer pontoon in Aberdeen Harbor’s Albert Basin has been completed by Swedish energy firm Vattenfall – supporting a new gateway for renewables in the center of the country’s energy industry. The 180m² pontoon, which is the only one of its kind at Aberdeen Harbor, has been specially built on Commercial Quay West as part of a 24-year agreement with the Harbor Board and can accommodate up to three crew transfer vessels at any one time. It will initially be used to support construction of Vattenfall’s European Offshore Wind Deployment Center (EOWDC) and then as a marine support base for its on-going operations and maintenance(O&M) program.

Economical repairs are being applied to rapidly corroding steel and concrete structures in U.S. ports and inland waterways. The new repair systems – PileMedic & SPiRe – might just be what the doctor ordered. Recent advancements in using Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) for major structural repair and strengthening of submerged marine piles made of concrete or even timber has led to an economical, less invasive infrastructure repair solution for inland port development compared to current systems.

Construction at the new £300 million ($500 million) container terminal being built at the Port of Liverpool has reached an advanced stage. Work to reclaim 12 hectares of land has passed the first stage with further infilling due to take place over the summer. The majority of 296 steel piles have been driven into the seabed, allowing the infilling of 1.43 million tonnes of sand and silts taken from the Mersey estuary and deposited behind the new quay wall, up to a level of (+)6 metres above ordinary datum. Doug Coleman, Liverpool2’s Construction Director, said: “There are very few projects of this kind and scale going on in the UK, especially considering the impact of the exceptional tidal range.

Over 300 industry guests gathered at the Port of Liverpool yesterday (Thursday June 6th) to toast the launch of Peel Ports’ landmark deep water container terminal Liverpool2.. Sir Bobby Charlton and ‘King’ Kenny Dalglish pushed the button on the start of dredging and launched a dazzling display of fireworks over the site of the new terminal in the Mersey. The two footballing legends were invited to symbolise the great benefits that Liverpool2 – along with Peel Ports’ investments in port hubs along the Manchester Ship Canal – will bring to both the cities of Liverpool and Manchester. Kenny Dalglish said, “Bobby and myself are both very proud of our adopted cities so the business and employment this will bring to the region is fantastic.

BAM International and its South African joint-venture partner Stefanutti Stocks have been awarded the contract for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of a petroleum jetty at the Kissy Oil Terminal of Freetown in Sierra Leone. It will take the joint venture approximately one year to design and complete the project for PetroJetty Ltd. The new petroleum jetty comprises a 240 metres steel trestle on steel piles, including a concrete offloading platform of 12 x 25 metres, four mooring dolphins, two breasting dolphins and a fender rack. For the top works, sister company BAM Leidingen & Industrie will engineer and supply the hose tower, the firefighting system and the piping and electrical part.

Construction on the Liverpool2 container terminal – a £300m project which will open up the whole of the U.K. to global trade – has entered a new phase. More than 320 40m-long steel piles, weighing 47 metric tons each, are now being driven into the bed of the River Mersey to form one of the highest quay walls in Europe, at 30 meters. Liverpool2 will open up the whole of the U.K. to trade from Asia, the Middle East and the Americas after the upgrading of the Panama Canal in 2015, providing a lower-cost, greener alternative to traditional southern English ports.

The pile Gripper Arms, installed this week, stabilize 6m diameter 650t steel piles as they are driven into the seabed by the MPI Discovery installation jack up vessel. Installed on the vessel’s stern below deck level, they provide resistance to wave, tide and current forces in water depths of up to 40m. Their position and the additional control this provides significantly reduces installation times providing a valuable enhancement to the Discovery’s capability, Houlder said. “The challenge of handling offshore wind turbine piles has grown along with their size.” commented Frederic Perdrix…

The first phase of a multi-million pound redevelopment project of Aberdeen Harbor’s Torry Quay has been completed. A project milestone, it was marked by the vessel Skandi Foula, which docked at the quay before loading cargo destined for a North Sea installation. The vessel is the first to have used the new facilities, which include 300 meters of realigned, deep water berths, a stronger quayside for heavier lifts, and a wider channel in the River Dee, designed to facilitate improved vessel navigation. These features are the result of an initial £19million investment by the Aberdeen Harbor Board. “There is a growing trend for increasingly large, deep-drafted vessels.” Said Ken Reilly, engineering director of Aberdeen Harbor.

The first joint venture project between Cathelco and UMC International has been completed at the Yonderberry fuelling jetty at Torpoint in Plymouth. Earlier this year, the two companies created an alliance enabling the specialist diving services of UMC International to be used for the installation and maintenance of corrosion protection systems supplied by Cathelco. The Yonderberry jetty project, commissioned by Babcock, has involved installing a new sacrificial anode system that will protect the steel piles of the north and south ‘dolphins’ used for mooring vessels during refuelling.

Ballast Nedam's heavy lift vessel Svanen left the port of Rotterdam last weekend. The Svanen has been commissioned by Van Oord Dredging and Marine Contractors to drive 56 steel piles for the foundations of the Belwind offshore wind farm off the coast of Zeebrugge (Belgium). This is the first phase of the Belwind project, which will eventually encompass a total of 110 wind turbines. Once the project is completed the 110 wind turbines will supply power to approximately 350,000 households, meaning a reduction of 540,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually. The offshore wind farm is located on Bligh Bank, a sand bank 46 kilometres from the Belgian coast where the sea has a depth of 15 to 37 meters.

In very challenging weather conditions Danish contractor Per Aarsleff is installing its largest profile and one of its longest combination steel pile retaining walls for the extension to the container terminal in the Port of Muuga on the Gulf of Finland south coast, 17km east of the Estonian capital Tallinn. The site team, with its fleet of specialist marine plant, has been coping with freezing temperatures, strong winds and rough seas at the exposed site to accurately drive over 420 tubular steel piles up to 1.67m diameter and 45m long into the seabed.