Van Oord and Boskalis have been awarded a dredging contract valued at approximately €500 million ($570 million) to deepen the Port of Luleå in Sweden.
The contract value is split equally between both companies, which will undertake the work as part of the Malmporten project.
Under the agreement, the joint venture will deepen the fairway and harbour basin to accommodate vessels with a draught of up to 14.7 metres and a cargo capacity of up to 85,000 tonnes.
This represents an increase that will nearly double the current capacity of 45,000 tonnes, intending to improve operational efficiency at the port.
According to the companies, project execution is scheduled to commence in the spring of 2027, with activities taking place during ice-free seasons and concluding before August 15, 2030.
The joint venture announced that the works involve dredging approximately 14 million cubic metres of material, including sand, silt, clay, moraine soils, boulders and significant quantities of fresh rock.
Part of the dredged material will be reused for land reclamation to enable the development of a new deep-water port area. To execute the project, the joint venture will deploy a broad range of specialised equipment, including trailing suction hopper dredgers, backhoe dredgers, grab dredgers, and drill and blast platforms.
Mitigating measures during dredging will include the use of silt screens, bubble curtains, environmental buckets, turbidity monitoring and innovative dredging techniques to minimise impact.
Both companies previously completed preparatory dredging works in Luleå in 2024, removing approximately 1.5 million cubic metres of sediment, hard moraine soils and large boulders.
