New Cutter Suction Dredger Delivered to Dredging Africa

Damen Shipyards Group has delivered a new Cutter Suction Dredger (CSD) 250 to South Africa-based Dredging Africa to be used for mining sand from the Ash River, just east of Bethlehem in the Free State Province.

Arend van de Wetering, Director of Dredging Africa, said, “We wanted to utilize the best equipment available, to be sure of the best production, reliability and lowest downtime. Ease of transport and commissioning were key for us as were sound after-market support and Damen’s offering met all of these requirements.”

“Most dredging projects in South Africa are small- to medium-sized, generally involving dredging to depths of no more than 5 meters. The CSD can dredge to 6 meters and is compact and easily transportable by road.”

The CSD will dredge fluvial sand deposits from a 64ha location in the Ash River into the washing and screening plant of Bethlehem Quality Sand. The sand will be used in the construction industry.

The dredger has the capacity to extract and pump some 1,000 m3 of mixture per hour. The floating pipeline, with an internal diameter of 250 mm, will start at just 100 meters in length. It connects to a 50 m land line which is directly connected to the sand classification plant. The plant can process 150 metric tons per hour; the excess material is dumped on a reserve stockpile. As the project develops, the mining dredger will gradually move away from the classification plant. This is no problem as more floating pipeline can be added; no booster station is required.

Van de Wetering added, “Dredging Africa wanted to go to the next level in dredging in Southern Africa and Damen assisted us in realizing this development. This is the first state-of-the-art-dredger of its kind in South Africa to tackle the numerous dredging tasks at hand in this beautiful country.”