The newbuild trailing suction hopper dredger (TSHD) Bonny River has joined DEME Group's dredging fleet and is presently being mobilised for its first assignment.
The 15,000-cubic-metre vessel is able to dredge very hard soils and can work in deep waters of more than 100 metres.
Bonny River combines a very long suction pipe and large carrying capacity, with a limited draught. Additionally, the TSHD has a heavy-duty trail pipe with a rock draghead.
The dredger has a large jet pipe on its suction tube that uses extracted overflow water from the hopper that is pumped back to the seabed and integrated into the dredging process. This enables the vessel to achieve "closed loop dredging" whereby the turbidity generated by the process water is eliminated, which is particularly important in environmentally sensitive areas.
For its first assignment, the vessel will reclaim approximately 300,000 cubic metres of sand at the New Lock Terneuzen project in the Netherlands. With the reclamation, which will be combined with deepening works in the outer harbour of Terneuzen, the first phase of the plateau will be realised from which the new lock will be built.
Afterwards, Bonny River will set course for the Belgian North Sea to backfill approximately 45 kilometres of trenches for Belgian transmission system operator Elia's Modular Offshore grid project, covering and protecting the high voltage export power cables from the Offshore Switch Yard to Zeebrugge.
The official naming ceremony for the TSHD will take place later this year.
