Bremershaven

Bremerhaven: Expansion of riverside container port to container terminal with the world's longest container quay

Our client
After a period of rapid growth in container transport by ship, Bremerhaven had almost reached the end of its container transhipment and storage capacity in late 2006. In 2002, Bremerports - the Bremen port authority - decided to extend the container quay to a total of 5 km. It also proved necessary to expand the terminal area by 90 ha. The expansion work is being carried out by Brewaba/Van Oord.

Our work
Prior to the expansion, the ‘Weddewarder Tief' discharge canal was rerouted. Ground treatment work was carried out simultaneously, with 600,000 m3 of clay being dredged in front of the quay wall and replaced by 1,000,000 m3 of sand. A total 9,000,000 m3 of sand was used to create the terminal area. Where the port facilities lay outside the new quay, a riverside flood defence structure was built, including a dike. Some 90,000 tonnes of rock were used to protect the 2.3 km slope. The final work involved dredging an 18.5 m deep mooring basin in front of the new quay wall, allowing mega-vessels to moor along the quay.

Our results
The technical challenge of this project lay in overcoming problems caused by rapid currents in the mouth of the river and the site's unprotected location. It was also necessary to take the ebb and flow of the tide in front of and behind the quay into account, and to remove the silt that the tide deposited. Our water-injection dredging technology proved excellently suited to this task. The project work was carried out successfully and at great speed. Bremerports was able to commence using the quay and terminal area eight months earlier than originally planned.