Boskalis Annual Report 2018

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LANDMARK ACHIEVEMENT “Many hundreds of people work here every day,” Pröpper explained. “In addition to colleagues from numerous disciplines at Boskalis, there are a lot of local employees: more than 10% of our workforce is from Oman. We also make 10% of our purchases with local small and medium companies and adapt our work to the needs of local fshermen and protect marine life, including a whale colony.” Despite the enormous size of the project, the complexity and tight schedule, the project is proceeding to the full satisfaction of the client. “We are working ahead of schedule, have met our frst four of seven milestones and we are also doing well in terms of safety,” Pröpper said. “In late 2018 we booked a landmark achievement: four million man-hours without a lost-time incident. Thanks in part to our innovative approach, the option in our contract was recently awarded resulting in the dredging of an extra ten million cubic meters by the Helios and another reclamation job for approximately 7 million cubic meters.” NINA NINA, the Boskalis safety-awareness program, plays a crucial role here. “We have been organizing NINA training courses and toolbox meetings since the beginning of the project,” Pröpper said. “We are working here with temporary staff from 25 different countries, including drivers and operators from places including Pakistan, India and Oman. Not everyone has a complete command of English and so we regularly call in local supervisors and foremen during safety meetings to translate and ensure that our safety message gets across properly. We are also very serious about using Safety Hazard Observation Cards. We have already received more than ten thousand, and we are addressing the proposed improvements.” SAND SUPPLIES AND COMPACTION During the frst 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 9 million cubic meters, was carried out under the supervision of colleagues from Boskalis Nederland involving over 80 units of dry earthmoving equipment. Our subsidiary Cofra is compacting the reclaimed area. Some of that work has now been completed and the areas in question have been tested and handed over to the client. QUAY WALL AND JETTIES Working with our partner Six Construct, Boskalis built a gigantic quay wall on the edge of the extensive polder.

More than 5,000 large concrete blocks were required for this operation and they were produced elsewhere on site. At the same time, the impressive steel structures were built in the middle of the polder for the two jetties. That involved installing 330 large steel piles that were then connected to each other with steel beams and in situ poured concrete platforms. NEW TYPE OF CUTTER HEAD In late 2017 the cutter suction dredger Helios started the frst phase of dredging for the entrance channel to the new port area. It also started excavating the outer section of the port basin. “We came across a lot of tough rock in this frst stage. It was a challenge for the dredger,” Pröpper said. “To get the job done, a team of Boskalis specialists developed and produced new cutter heads within an extremely tight schedule. Since October 2018 the Helios has been using them to remove the remaining 15 million cubic meters of various types of rock.” FLOODING THE POLDER After the completion of the civil engineering work, the polder was flooded in mid-January 2019 using large siphons and so the impressive engineered structures are now largely hidden from view. “From a technical and logistical point of view, we have achieved something very special here,” Pröpper concluded. The fnal completion date for the project is April 2020.