Belgian marine contractor DEME has deployed the backhoe dredger Peter the Great to dredge the La Chatière access channel at Port 2000 in Le Havre, France.
The work follows completion of the connection between the new breakwater and the southern breakwater of the historic port. Haropa Port announced the connection on October 15. It required a junction structure, and tetrapods on the historic breakwater were removed or repositioned to interlock with the new structure's Accropodes.
DEME said material excavated by Peter the Great is being carried to the Octeville disposal site by the split hopper barges Vlaanderen VII and Vlaanderen VIII. The company is carrying out the project with joint venture partner Terélian.
The two-kilometre, 100-metre-wide channel will link Port 2000 with the historic port and the Seine basin. A 1,800-metre breakwater will shelter barges from swell.
Under the current arrangement, only about 10 specially designed river barges can cross open water to berth at Port 2000. Other river units must load or discharge in the historic port, and their containers continue by road or rail.
Haropa Port has forecast that the channel will increase riverborne volumes to and from Port 2000 by at least 50 per cent.
Completion is scheduled for early 2028.
Built in 2012, Peter the Great has a length of 60 metres, a beam of 17.2 metres, an 11-cubic-metre bucket and a maximum dredging depth of 20 metres.
