Powerful cutter dredger Amazone completes DEME’s major investment program.
On Saturday, the new heavy-duty cutter suction dredger (CSD) ‘Amazone’, was named at Marina Bay Cruise Centre in Singapore by Mrs. Monique Marcourt, spouse of Mr. Jean-Claude Marcourt, Vice-president and Minister for Economy, SME’s, Foreign Trade and new Technologies of the Walloon Government, DEME press release said.
This new sea-going dredger is self-propelled and features no less than 12,860 kW of total installed power. The ‘Amazone’ has an integrated barge loading facility enabling to discharge both through the traditional floating pipeline and directly into a barge moored alongside. The increased discharge power allows for covering significantly larger distances between the dredging area and the reclamation area when pumping ashore.
The ‘Amazone’ is specially equipped for dredging hard rock formations. She has a rock cutter head designed for great production rates with low down-time, thanks to an advanced quick teeth replacement system, a low spillage due to an optimized hydraulic design and highly durable teeth adapters with virtually maintenance-free contact surfaces.
The ‘Amazone’ is able to dredge at water depths up to 30 m. As her sistership ‘Al Jarraf’, the ‘Amazone’ was built at the ASL shipyard in Singapore.
Singapore has always been an important partner for the DEME Group. Many of our ‘green’ vessels have substantially contributed to the extension of the city state and all activities and operations in the Far East area are monitored and coordinated from the Singapore office.
The Amazone is the last vessel to be christened of DEME’s extensive investment program, involving the construction of almost 20 main dredging and marine engineering vessels over the last five years.
DEME is strongly evolving from a contractor to a global solution provider. Besides the further growth in core-business activities of dredging and land reclamation, the Group is focusing on new projects and challenges in the field nearshore and farshore renewable energy, offshore oil and gas activities and sea mineral resources.
Thanks to the support of our home country and its decision-makers, DEME has been able to innovate and develop expertise. It undoubtedly has allowed DEME to explore new challenges and develop a worldwide operating group of companies offering total solutions for future needs.
The Amazone will probably start her first operations in Oceania and in the Middle East.
The new vessel is named ‘Amazone’, symbolizing the mighty river irrigating the huge rainforest with the highest biodiversity of plant species on earth. The ship’s logo reflects DEME’s commitment to create, act and work in a sustainable way, providing solutions for shaping land together with nature and exploring new and renewable energy sources.
About DEME
The Belgian dredging, environmental and marine engineering group DEME has won a prominent position on the world market in a number of highly specialized and complex hydraulic disciplines. The DEME Group diversified from dredging operations and land reclamation to marine engineering solutions at sea, services to oil and gas companies, installation of offshore wind farms, environmental activities such as soil remediation, recycling of dredged materials and remediation of brownfields and wreck clearance. The Group has one of the most modern, high-tech and versatile fleets for dredging and marine engineering. DEME employs more than 4,200 people. In 2011 the Group realised a turnover of EUR 1.766 billion.
