Contract for construction of Maasvlakte 2 signed

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

29 Feb 2008

The Port of Rotterdam Authority, Koninklijke Boskalis Westminster NV and Van Oord NV today signed the contract for the construction of the first section of Maasvlakte 2. The contract involves in excess of € 1 billion. ''We have taken another big step towards implementing this project, which is so important for the Dutch economy. The contractors are ready to start at the end of the summer, so that the first ships will be able to unload their containers in five years'', according to Port Authority CEO, Hans Smits.Boskalis and Van Oord are working together on this project under the name PUMA, which stands for Projectorganisatie Uitbreiding Maasvlakte (project organisation for the expansion of the Maasvlakte). The two Dutch hydraulic engineering companies will construct the first section of Maasvlakte 2 between 2008 and 2013. The contract covers the construction of 2.4 km of hard sea defences (stones and blocks), 8.4 km of soft sea defences (beach and dunes), the first 700 ha or so of port area, 2 km of deep sea quay (-20 m), 1 km of barge / feeder quay  (-11 / -13 m), the deepening of the port basins and the construction of 11 km of roads (2x2 lanes and 2 secondary roads) and railway lines (dual track), needed to make Maasvlakte 2 accessible. According to the terms of the contract, the consortium will also maintain Maasvlakte’s sea defences for the first five years after completion of the project.The contract takes the form of a ‘design & construct’, plus maintenance of the sea defences and quayside structures. The Port Authority did not invite tenders for a design, but proposals for a functional Schedule of Requirements. Both during the assessment of the proposals and the realisation of the plans, the Port Authority pays particular attention to the complex and risky elements, such as the quay walls. This form of contract gives PUMA a large degree of freedom in how it carries out the project, and the Port Authority only aims for what it really wants: a sustainable and safe port area with excellent accessibility and which results in minimum disruption to the environment and shipping during construction. Completely in the spirit of design & construct, the parties agreed that optimizations in the design could also be carried out after the contract had been signed, as long as they fitted within the Schedule of Requirements and if there was agreement on the optimizations.If all goes according to plan, construction work will begin at the end of summer 2008. The first sites will then be ready to build on at the beginning of 2011 and the first container terminal can go into operation in mid 2013.The distribution of risks is organised in such a way that the party best able to manage the risk bears the risk. The distribution of risks also takes account of the reasonable interests of parties. For example, the consequences of storms which occur less than once every 50 years are borne by the contractor. Above this, the Port Authority takes responsibility. With the principles formulated above, most risks, on balance, are borne by the contractors, which is extremely rare in such large, long-term contracts.The Port Authority has every confidence in the successful and speedy finalisation of the legal  procedures which have been announced in the ongoing spatial planning processes. The Port Authority has therefore agreed with the contractors’ consortium that they will have their equipment available in September 2008 so that a start can be made on implementing the project.Many provisions in the contract are based on the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and the permit applications. On the one hand, PUMA has supplied information for these documents whilst, on the other, the construction work can be achieved within the margins of the studies. In the EIS, for instance, the assumption is that no more than fifteen dredgers will be deployed simultaneously whilst, in practice, often no more than half that number will be used for dredging. The so-called monitoring and evaluation programme, by means of which a finger will be kept on the environmental pulse during construction of Maasvlakte 2, will be executed jointly by PUMA and the Port Authority.PUMA aims to recycle and reuse as much material as possible. For example, the current hard sea defences (block dam) will be demolished and the material will be used a couple of kilometres further along in the new hard sea defences.The Port Authority announced previously that it had allocated 40% of Maasvlakte 2 for container handling by the companies APMT, Rotterdam World Gateway and Euromax. To fund Maasvlakte 2 and other port projects, the Port Authority raised € 2 billion from EIB, BNG and a consortium consisting of Rabobank, Fortis and ING, at the beginning of this year. At the end of last year, the Committee for the EIS made a positive recommendation on the  environmental studies carried out. Now that the contractors have been contracted, all that remains to be done before the project can actually start is to complete a number of spatial planning procedures and obtain a number of permits. If all goes according to schedule, that will all be resolved this summer.