A consortium of Royal Boskalis, Van Oord and Hochtief will dredge the trench that will house the longest immersed road and rail tunnel in the world.
The Fehmarnbelt tunnel will eventually connect Denmark with Germany, and with it mainland Europe, via a four-lane motorway and railway.
The contract to Boskalis is reported to be worth US$330 million but is conditional on obtaining environmental permits from German authorities. These are not expected to be issued before 2017.
Boskalis together with Van Oord will dredge a tunnel trench in the seabed over a distance of 16 kilometres using equipment including trailing suction hopper dredgers, backhoes and grab dredgers.
In contrast to a bored tunnel, an immersed tunnel is made up of hollow concrete elements, cast on land and assembled section by section to form the tunnel. The consortium will also construct a new working harbour to house and assist the construction of these tunnel sections before they are floated out to sea for installation.
In total, approximately 19 million cubic metres of stone and sand will be excavated from the seabed. The dredged material will be reused to create a new recreational nature reserve area on the Danish side of the Fehmarnbelt. This will be used to establish approximately three square kilometres of new natural areas on Lolland and, to a lesser extent, on Fehmarn.
