Withdrawal of Boskalis, DEME, Jan de Nul, Van Oord – a huge challenge for Russia

Russia experienced a considerable increase in the costs of dredging works in 2022.

The main reason for this is the withdrawal of top European dredging companies from the Russian market, said Andrey Boldorev, Head of the Department for Investments and Strategic Development, FSUE Rosmorport, at the 6th International Congress “Hydraulic Engineering and Dredging”.

The conference took place in Moscow earlier this week.

Contractors representing the Big Four dredging companies (Van Oord, Boskalis, Jan de Nul, DEME), which account for over 98% of dredging works in Russian ports, withdrawn from Russia’s marine infrastructure projects in February 2022. 

According to Boldorev, “the cost of dredging works under the projects being implemented together with the investors rose by about 30% in 2022”.

Restrictions on involvement of foreign-flagged ships from unfriendly countries are another reason for this, he added.

“All those factors rise risks for equipment owners,” he said.

“The dredging fleet is insufficient in all regions, excluding the Far East, perhaps.”

“A large part of the North-West and the Azov-Black Sea Basin basin used to be serviced by European dredging equipment. Now we are looking for partners in countries which do not support the policy of sanctions against the Russian Federation.”

“The problem is that the parameters and the types of equipment from such countries do not meet the European parameters,” concluded Boldorev.