The latest Suez Canal expansion has certainly been a large scale project by many measures. The $8.2 billion investment over only 12 months saw 45 dredging vessels move up to 1.7 million m³ per day of dredged material with over 250 million m³ moved in total.

The project comprised the construction of a 35 km long new canal section in addition to 37km of deepening and widening to the Great Bitter Lakes and Ballah by-passes.  This increased the number of vessels per day from 49 to 97, with the aim to support the Suez Canal Area Development Project, enhance the Egyptian national economy and turn Egypt into an international logistics centre.

The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) issued a tender in 2014, divided into six lots. SCA undertook Lot 1 themselves, the “Challenge Consortium” (consisting of Boskalis, Van Oord, Jan De Nul and NMDC) successfully tendered for Lots 2 – 5, and the consortium DEME / Great Lakes were awarded Lot 6.

In order to complete this project in the incredibly ambitious one year programme, the largest dredging fleet ever was mobilised.  This, combined with efficient management of the associated logistic and organisational requirements resulted in the new channel being opened by the Egyptian President, to programme, on 06 August 2015.

Jaap Dekker, Project Director of the Challenge Consortium and Dirk Draulans, Project Director of the DEME / Great Lakes Consortium will give a presentation about how their respective parts of the project were successfully completed. 

Booking your place – online booking procedure

 To book your place at this event please visit:

https://www.ice.org.uk/events/john-sargent-lecture-the-suez-project

If you do not currently have access to a MyICE account please register and this will allow you to book yourself on all future CEDA UK events.  Please note in order to create your MyICE account you will need to register as a non-member as the membership relates to ICE not CEDA UK.

 If you require advice or are unable to book yourself on this event please contact Pauline Arundel on pauline.arundel@ice.org.uk

 Certificates of attendance are available to CEDA UK members. 

The Jon Sargent Lecture can be viewed below: