Canada – White Rose

White Rose, Canada

White Rose

In the Grand Banks, along the east coast of Newfoundland in Canada, there is a large oil and gas field in the Atlantic Ocean, 350 km off the coast. In 2003 and 2007, Jan De Nul Group had already taken care of excavating two production wells. In 2012, the powerful trailing suction hopper dredger Cristóbal Colón dredged the second well. At a depth of up to 130 m, in extremely hard and constantly varying soil conditions, Jan De Nul Group successfully dredged a production well 10.5 m deep and 45 to 80 m wide.

For this assignment, the Cristóbal Colón was fitted with a long configuration of two suction pipes, whereby the ship could dredge down to a depth of 155 m. Hard sandstone, very stiff clay and large boulders measuring no less than four metres in diameter made the task extremely challenging.