Jan de Nul to conquer with world no.1 hopper

The vessel was built at the Constucciones Navales del Norte shipyard in Sestao, Spain and was on sea trials in March.
She went to the Cernaval ship repair facility on the outskirts of Algeciras for final preparation work and sailed to Dubai to undertake reclamation projects.
A Jan de Nul spokeswoman said the Spanish yard was also building a sistership, named Leiv Eirikkson and this was due to be launched in the third quarter of this year.
The ship would then need more preparation work but could be delivered before the end of 2009.
Meanwhile, Constucciones Navales del Norte is building the 191 metres long Simon Stevin fallpipe and mining vessel.
This ship will have the world’s longest fallpipe at 1,700 metres below sea level and is suitable for deepsea mining operations, such as the recovery of minerals from the seabed, Jan de Nul said.
The vessel was launched from the yard on March 13 and it will take another four months for the installation of equipment before she is delivered, the spokeswoman said.
“The fallpipe vessel Simon Stevin will mostly be deployed in the offshore industry where oil and gas pipelines have to be installed in deepwater,” she said.
The ship has a 32,000 tonne loading capacity and can dump 2,000 tonnes of rock per hour.
After this vessel was launched, the Spanish yard started work on another 30,500 cu metre trailing suction hopper dredger – JDN8035, the spokeswoman said.
Another project in the works is for Woodside Petroleum in Western Australia.
Jan de Nul is responsible for rock dumping on an offshore pipeline linking offshore fields to the Pluto liquefied natural gas project.
Jan de Nul ordered six barges, five workboats and five tugs last year to increase its support fleet.
This year it is also working in Saudi Arabia on the Manifa oil field causeway and island construction project.
“This involves connecting 27 reclaimed islands, built for drilling and hydrocarbon processing systems, to the mainland.
Jan de Nul was also doing dredging works on the Pearl gas-to-liquids pipeline project in Qatar for Royal Dutch Shell this year.
US contractor J Ray McDermott was contracted to lay the Pearl pipelines in the second quarter.