Dredge Goliath Working on Liverpool2

A joint venture of BAM Nuttall and Van Oord was awarded a £75 million pound (about $117 million) contract for Liverpool2 a new container terminal project that will open up the United Kingdom and Ireland to Asia Middle East and the Americas shipping after the new Panama Canal opens in 2015. Goliath one of the world’s largest backhoe dredges started work on the project in September.

Goliath and water injection dredging techniques will dredge soft materials from the River Mersey and a trailing suction hopper dredge will create the new container area. A cutter suction dredge will then create a berthing pocket using the dredged material as fill.

Dredging began in June and three trailer suction dredges removed 75000 cubic meters of alluvial silts from the site. A second phase used a water injection dredge to displace 180000 cubic meters of silt.

Goliath is removing 315000 cubic meters of clay. After this work cutter suction dredge Artemis will remove 580000 cubic meters of underlying rock sand and gravel for reuse as infill behind the new quay wall.