The emergency dredging works in the Port of Beira, worth EUR25 million, are officially underway, according to the Mozambique News Agency (AIM).
Van Oord, a Dutch contracting company that specializes in dredging and land reclamation, has been contracted by CFM – the ports and railways company of Mozambique – to carry out this very important project.
Trailing suction hopper dredger (TSHD) Volvox Atalanta, assisted by the Sagar Manthan for bed-levelling operations, is currently dredging the port access channel to its original width and depth.
The main goal of this dredging scheme is to restore channel widths of 135 and 250 meters and depths of 8 and 9.20 meters in the straight sections and Macuti curve respectively, AIM reports.
Once the dredging work is completed, it is expected that Panamax-type ships of up to 60,000 gross tons will again visit the port. At the moment, only vessels up to 30,000 gross tons can be accommodated.
The Port of Beira acts as a gateway to the central interior area of the country as well as the land-locked nations of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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