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Construction of the port, which will be one of the deepest in the world and will cover an area of 26.5km² will require approximately 45 million m³ of mainly hard rock to be dredged from a 20km-long approach channel and the basin itself.
Weir Minerals will supply heavy-duty skid-mounted pump assemblies, each incorporating a Warman 550 TUL slurry pump, a 1,000hp diesel engine, a gearbox and a heavy-duty bearing frame. The contract is valued at £2.8 million (€3.45 million).
Each pump set will deliver a flow rate of 6,000m³/hour and they will be deployed on two self-propelling, rock-breaking dredger vessels.
Tony G Locke, managing director of Weir Minerals Europe, said: “This is a project on an enormous scale: the amount of solid rock that will be dredged would be enough to fill the Great Pyramid at Giza [Egypt] 18 times over or the Royal Albert Hall [London] 500 times over.
“We have worked for several years with Dredging, Environmental and Marine Engineering (DEME), a Belgium-based dredging company which part-owns MEDCO, and our selection for this project is a result of the excellent products and service we have provided in the past.
“The win further consolidates the long list of megaprojects Weir Minerals has supported all over the globe.”
MEDCO’s deputy general manager said: “This project is a key element of Qatar’s development plans, as its rapid growth in recent years has seen its existing infrastructure pushed close to capacity.
“The scale of the dredging project required to make the port a reality calls for the most robust and reliable slurry pumps, and Weir’s Warman pump range has an unrivalled reputation in this respect.”
