US: The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners has unanimously approved a US$123 million dredging and wharf building contract, the initial stages of the Middle Harbor Redevelopment Project.
The contract covers the first part of a US$1 billion modernisation and consolidation of two aging shipping terminals into one container terminal with twice the cargo capacity. The overall project is planned to take nine years.
This first part, which includes building wharves, dredging one slip and filling in another, is expected to start in the second quarter of 2011 and take 22 months.
