Taranaki, Tauranga, Timaru

New Zealand ports' maintenance partner for almost three decades

Our client
In order to reduce costs, New Zealand's North Island ports of Tauranga and Taranaki and South Island port of Timaru joined forces in the late 1980s to have maintenance dredging work done on a regular basis.

Our work
In 1988, the ports contracted Van Oord to carry out the work and required the availability on the New Zealand coast of a trailing suction hopper dredger. Consequently the trailing suction hopper dredger Pelican was mobilised from Holland. The initial contract has been rolled over every five years, and based on the excellent relationship parties agreed late 2007 on a ten year renewal of the Contract. This meant the continuation of deploying the Pelican on the New Zealand Coast until 2017.

Our results
Every year, some 500,000 m³ of material gets removed and deposited at various spoil grounds. This maintenance work keeps the declared depths in the three ports up to date and allows them to remain competitive in the international shipping market and remain attractive for large container vessels to call in.