The deepening works on the southern Rauma fairway were completed last month and the fairway began operations with a maximum authorized draught of 12 meters on 15 December 2017, the Port of Rauma said in their latest announcement.
The new draught makes it possible for larger vessels than before to enter the port, thus improving the port’s competitiveness and reducing emissions from navigation, as each vessel’s load can be increased by as much as 100%.
During this project, the maximum authorized draught in southern Rauma fairway was increased from 10 to 12 meters.
In addition to underwater dredging and blasting works, work was carried out on aids to navigation and a dredge spoil basin was built.
The deepening program, which began in 2016 as a joint project of the Finnish Transport Agency and the Port of Rauma, is the agency’s first waterway project in which all clean ground material dredged from the fairway was deposited in the dredge spoil basin built during the project.
Wasa Dredging Oy was the main contractor of dredging works.
The total cost of the joint project was €44.8 million, of which the Finnish Transport Agency contributed €31.5 million and the Port of Rauma €13.3 million.
During the work, more underwater rock than planned was found, which increased the project cost and workload. Despite the increased workload, it was possible to start using the fairway with the maximum authorized draught of 12 meters slightly ahead of schedule.
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