The first contract for the same Western Basin Development and signed on the 4th March 2011, involved the works contained in Parcel 5 to the sum of AUD 260 million (EUR 190 million). Van Oord Australia Pty Ltd is part of the Dutch, Rotterdam based, dredging and offshore contractor Van Oord. Dredging International (Australia) is part of the Belgian dredging, environmental and hydraulic engineering Group DEME.
The works under Parcels 1, 3 and 4 of the Western Basin Development project includes the dredging of various channels, swing basins and bypass channels to – 13 m LAT for the access to the various berth pockets, embarkation docks and material offloading facilities. A total volume of 18.5 million m3 will be dredged, of which about 2 million m3 will be disposed of at the East Bank Spoil Ground, at a sailing distance of 45 km, and 16.5 million m3 will be pumped ashore at the Western Basin reclamation area to create a new port area for the Port of Gladstone adjacent to the existing Fisherman’s Landing reclamation area.
The actual dredging works will start after the completion of the first contract (Parcel 5) in March 2012 and will be completed in December 2014. A heavy-duty Cutter Suction Dredger with floating booster stations and a large Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger will be deployed to execute this important dredging assignment. Special attention will be given to the Environmental Management and the Management of the Possible Acid Sulphate Soil in the reclamation area. All environmental and dredging plans are verified and permits are in place.
The dredging of the Western Basin Dredging Project will facilitate the export of the LNG produced at the facilities under construction in Gladstone. Within the largest LNG scheme in Australia, Coal Seam Gas (coal bed methane), produced in the Surat and Bowen basins in eastern Queensland, will be transported by pipeline over 450 km to the gas liquefaction plants on Curtis Island in Gladstone for conversion into LNG. The formal funding parties for these facilities are QCLNG (BG Group), APLNG (Origin and ConocoPhillips), GLNG (Santos, PETRONAS, Total and KOGAS) and Arrow CSG (Arrow Energy).
This AUD 1.3 billion (EUR 985 million) development of the Western Basin area will expand the footprint of Queensland’s largest multi-commodity port and will make the Port of Gladstone one of the largest ports in Australia.