Boskalis has secured a major dredging contract in India, but Dutch bank ABN Amro says it will do little to paper over the bigger issues at the company.
The EUR 250m ($266.7m) contract, which has been secured in a joint venture with Jan De Nul, involves the deepening and widening of the access channel towards Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai.
The Dutch contractor says works are scheduled to commence in the coming weeks and will be completed within two years.
“The areas to be dredged include the 35.5 kilometers long access channel and various turning basins and anchorage areas. In total more than 40m-cbm meters of sand, silt, clay and rock will be removed,” Boskalis said.
“For this project a jumbo trailing suction hopper dredger will be deployed in combination with a jumbo cutter suction dredger and a large backhoe.”
Jawaharlal Nehru Port, which is already the largest container handling port in the country, will be able to accommodate larger container vessels upon completion of the project.
ABN Amro said the contract, worth EUR 125m to Boskalis, goes someway to improving its dredging order backlog.
“Combined with recent order wins in Brazil, Oman and Netherlands, the dredging outlook is better than 2016, the worst dredging year so far this century,” it said.
“However, Boskalis is also heavily exposed to the offshore energy and towage and salvage segments which in 2017 and 2018 will be confronted with the full downside effects of the oil and gas and container industry downturn.”
