The Mar del Plata Regional Port Consortium has concluded the most significant maintenance dredging operation, in terms of execution time and scope of work, carried out in this seaport in almost three decades. After almost nine months of work, which included the operation of the dredge Omvac Diez both day and night, the removal of more than one million cubic meters of sediment was completed, allowing both access channels to have a draft of 11.6 and 10.6 meters in each of the alignments.
“It is not only relevant for the results that offer a port with its best standard for navigation and operation, but because for the first time it has been faced entirely with our own resources,” highlighted Marcos Gutiérrez, president of the Mar del Plata Regional Port Consortium, who emphasized the support of the Buenos Aires Government and the Bank of the Province of Buenos Aires towards this objective.
These works began last February with the intervention of the dredge belonging to the Spanish firm Canlemar, the winner of the national and international public tender.
“The company efficiently fulfilled the objective and the set goals,” Gutiérrez highlighted and emphasized that the higher quality sand was dumped near the coast so that with natural drift it would contribute to the recovery of the northern city’s beachfront.
With an original budget exceeding USD 6 million, this work aimed to provide significant improvements to the depth and width conditions of the inner and outer access channels, also in the turning area near the flammable materials station and the berthing fronts of the eighth and ninth sections of Breakwater 2.
“This was the main management objective for this year and it has been fully met. Despite some complications derived from meteorological phenomena, the task continued and we now have a port in the best conditions for the entry of large vessels, especially those involved in cargo transport and foreign trade,” explained the president of the Mar del Plata Regional Port Consortium.
