Bonny River Joins DEME Fleet

The Belgian dredging, environmental and marine engineering group DEME is investing in a new generation of trailing suction hopper dredgers which will be trendsetting in coastal protection and dredging hard soils.

DEME ordered newest generation trailing suction hopper dredger  'Bonny River' at Royal IHC.

"Thanks to the combination of unique characteristics such as an extremely long suction pipe, a large transport capacity with limited depth and an additional heavy duty rock draghead, the multidisciplinary ship can be used effectively in shallow water and in hard soils.," DEME said in a press release.

With the 'Bonny River', DEME is responding to the macroeconomic trend of maritime sand extraction at greater depths and further offshore. A long suction pipe with a built-in submersible pump facilitates sand extraction from more than 100 metres deep.

"Thanks to the hull's optimised design, the 'Bonny River' with its transport capacity of 24,000 tonnes has a limited depth when loaded, making the ship highly suitable for coastal protection assignments, even in regions with shallow beaches," it said.

An additional asset is the second, shorter suction pipe for dredging works on a harder seabed. By equipping the vessel with a 75 tonnes draghead, the 'Bonny River' is multidisciplinary: as a trailing suction hopper dredger the ship can also remove hard soil which wasn’t dredgeable in the past.

The 'Bonny River' will be able to minimise the turbidity generated by process water and enables dredging in environmentally vulnerable areas. Moreover, the hydrodynamic hull and the dual-fuel engines (diesel and LNG) ensure further optimisation of the fuel consumption and a minimal CO2 footprint.

The 'Bonny River' will carry a 'Green Passport' and a 'Clean Design' classification, a certification for owners and contractors which make the conscious decision to build and operate their ships in an environmentally friendly way.

The 'Bonny River' - named after the Nigerian river of the same name - is the sixth ship that DEME has on order, besides the multipurpose ship the 'Living Stone', the self-propelled jack-up vessel 'Apollo', the heavy lift crane vessel ‘RAMBIZ 4000’ and two additional trailing suction hopper dredgers.

The order for the 'Bonny River' has been placed at Royal IHC. The ship will be built by Cosco at its shipyard in Guangdong, China. Cosco is one of the world’s largest ship owning and operating companies, as well as a leading shipyard group, building general cargo, offshore and special customised vessels.