Watch: Construction of the Port of Duqm

Boskalis has released a video of the construction of the Port of Duqm in Oman. The Duqm project involves the creation of a large port area that will house, among other things, a bulk terminal and a refinery. Boskalis is executing the engineering, procurement and construction contract for the Special Economic Zone Authority Duqm.

What makes the project unique is that Boskalis first drained a large part of the future port by constructing a temporary ring dike, then pumped the water out so that it could build all the structures in this so-called polder, says Project Director Bart Pröpper. Operations began in 2017. The work included the construction of a large port basin and an entrance channel with a depth of 18 meters, and the construction of a kilometer-long quay wall and two 400-meter-long jetties. 

Boskalis started the second phase of the major land reclamation for the port area in the first half of 2019. The perimeter of the area will be protected with geotextile and one million tons of rock.

During the first phase of the project, the trailing suction hopper dredgers Queen of the Netherlands and Prins der Nederlanden pumped in millions of cubic meters of sand for the land reclamation and the construction of the temporary ring dike. For phase two the hopper Fairway will pump in a similar quantity of sand as in phase one. 

The excavation and large-scale earthmoving work for the construction and deepening of the polder, with a total volume of nine million cubic meters, was carried out under the supervision of Boskalis Nederland and involved over 80 units of dry earth moving equipment. Boskalis subsbsidiary Cofra compacted the reclaimed area. 

Working with partner Six Construct, Boskalis built a gigantic quay wall on the edge of the polder. More than 5,000 large concrete blocks were required, and they were produced elsewhere on site. At the same time, the steel structures were built in the middle of the polder for the two jetties. This involved installing 330 large steel piles that were then connected to each other with steel beams and in situ poured concrete platforms.

The final completion date for the project is April 2020.