Kids

Who is Van Oord?

The Dutch company Van Oord is one of the biggest marine engineering companies in the world. The Dutch know everything there is to know about working with land and water. Throughout the history of the Netherlands, the Dutch have had to protect themselves against the water by building dikes and dams. All those many centuries of experience mean that the Dutch have become experts in marine engineering, and they are far ahead of any other country in that field.

Van Oord is a family business. The company shares are not sold on the stock exchange; most of them are owned by the Van Oord family. Van Oord has more than 20 offices around the world and owns about 200 of its own vessels. About 4,500 Van Oord employees work on the company's vessels, projects and offices.

What does Van Oord do?

Van Oord's activities are divided into five groups.

Dredging
- dredging ports and channels (rivers, canals)
- dredging sand to create new land in the sea

Offshore
- installing rock on subsea oil and gas pipelines
- digging trenches for pipelines and laying the pipelines

Coastal construction
- building dikes
- constructing jetties and breakwaters
- replenishing the sand on beaches

Marine engineering
- building quay walls (the quays where large ships dock in ports)
- building moorings

Dry infrastructure
- supplying sand
- constructing earth tracks (the foundations for a motorway, for example)

Where does Van Oord work?

The Netherlands
Van Oord has worked on the following projects in the Netherlands in recent years:
- removing polluted soil from the Papegaaiebek (a disposal site at sea) in the Maasvlakte industrial complex at the Port of Rotterdam
- building quay walls in Amsterdam
- dredging for the North/South metro line beneath Amsterdam Central Railway Station

Europe and the Mediterranean
Van Oord has worked in western Europe for a long time. We have offices in many different countries there, for example Germany, Belgium, France and the UK. Van Oord is also doing more and more work in northern and eastern Europe, for example Norway and Russia.

Van Oord's projects in recent years have included:
- constructing an artificial island in Gibraltar, south of Spain
- protecting the coast at Dymchurch in the UK
- dredging the port of Aveiro in Portugal
- deepening the Gent-Terneuzen Canal in Belgium

Middle East and Southwest Asia
Van Oord works mainly in Dubai in the Middle East, but it also carries out work in surrounding countries. Van Oord can also be found in India and Jordan. Examples of important projects are:
- constructing an island in the form of the world map in Dubai (The World)
- creating the biggest palm island, Palm Deira, in Dubai
- deepening a number of ports in India, including at Mumbai and Hazira
- removing salt from the Dead Sea in Jordan.

Asia and Australia
Van Oord is involved in port development in South Korea and Vietnam. It has also built many new ports in Australia. Important projects include:
- deepening a channel in Tianjin, China
- dredging a huge trench for a traffic tunnel in Pusan, Korea
- dredging shell sand for cement production at Fremantle, Australia

Africa, South and Central America
In Africa, Van Oord does quite a lot of work in Nigeria and South Africa. In South and Central America, we can mainly be found in Brazil and Venezuela. Important projects include:
- deepening a canal in Calabar, Nigeria
- constructing an artificial lake in Tinapa, Nigeria
- expanding the port at Richards Bay, South Africa

Offshore
The world needs more and more energy. We generate energy from oil and gas. There is a lot of oil and gas deep in the earth's soil on land, but we are also searching for sources of energy in the sea.

There is an enormous network of pipelines in the seabed that carry oil and gas to shore. Van Oord makes sure that these subsea pipelines remain firmly in place. It also carries out the work needed to extend the same pipelines safely to shore.

This kind of work often requires different vessels to those used for dredging. It also requires a special knowledge of oil and gas pipelines and how these can be protected best.

Some of our important offshore projects are:
- covering an offshore pipeline in Norway with stone
- laying a gas pipeline in Lake IJsselmeer
- creating a landfall (a pipeline that stretches to the shore) in Abu Dhabi

Why does Van Oord have so much work to do?

Changes around the world mean that marine engineering companies will be very busy. We explain why below.

There are more and more cities

People around the world are moving from the countryside to the cities. People prefer to live and work near water. That's why about 80% of all the big cities around the world are located on the coast or along a river. Coastal and riverside cities are becoming more crowded, but dredging companies can create new land in the sea so that the cities can expand.

We need more energy

The world is filling up with people, and all of them use energy. We will need to lay many new oil and gas pipelines in the years ahead to transport all these sources of energy. And we will need other energy sources, such as wind farms. All these things will have to be built.

More goods are being transported by sea

Transport by sea in container ships is increasing, especially in Asia, Europe and America. A lot of money is therefore being spent on constructing and maintaining container ports (ports for container ships).

More people are going on holiday

More and more people go on holiday more often, and they want to go to far-away places. They like to go to the seashore. The demand for marinas, harbours for cruise ships and lovely wide beaches will increase in the years ahead.