Cosmos Van Oord, a joint venture of Cosmos Shipping and Van Oord, has been awarded a dredging project at Port of Burgas, the biggest port in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian Port Authorities have chosen the joint venture for the combination of local maritime know-how and the strength of a global marine contractor. By working on this project, Van Oord is contributing to the overall improvement of this pivotal marine infrastructure point in the Black Sea.
The project is part of the construction of a new deep-water berth at terminal Burgas-West in the Port of Burgas. This will establish a dedicated port zone for container handling and storage, and introduce eco-friendly methods for efficiently transferring cargo between ships and railways in both directions.
Van Oord’s scope of work contains the dredging of the port area to the required depth of 15.5 metres. In total, approximately 1.5 million cubic metres of clay will be dredged with a backhoe dredger. The works are expected to be completed in 2024.
The new berth will be built to accommodate the latest generation of container vessels with a draft of up to 14.5 metres and internal volume of up to 80,000 gross registered tonnes. This will enable the port to expand its operations amidst a growing demand by the cargo shipping industry in Southeast Europe.