HP joins DCT consortium

It will build the facility together with its marine-construction division, Hochtief Construction AG Civil Engineering and Marine Works. Deep-sea Container Terminal (DCT) Gdańsk SA is the designer behind the project.

The terminal will take shape on an artificially formed solid pier some 800 meters in length beyond the existing coastline and 315 meters in width. At 44 hectares this is the largest project Hochtief has tackled to date and will involve the construction of two container-reloading stations. The first section of the quay will be 385 meters long with a water depth of 16.5 meters and the second section will be 265 meters long and will have a depth of 13.5 meters. This section will also have a ramp for Roll On Roll Off handling, meaning it will be able to receive Panamax vessels, the largest class of ships in the Baltic Sea.

The zł.588-million investment will mean an increase in container capacity from just 60,000 units to more than one million. With plans for a giant logistics center on its doorstep, a deal with China's Ningbo port - the eighth largest in the world - and EU funding for the road and rail infrastructure, the pieces are falling into place that will allow the Baltic resort to play a key position on the European logistics front.

Size is not the only problem with the project. The area has to be combed for unexploded World War II shells and some antique artefacts have already been found. "In the course of the preparation work we have done so far we discovered a piece of a 19th-century anchor lift and a 17th-century smoking pipe. We notified the Polish Maritime Museum about those discoveries," said Piotr Suss, project manager with Hochtief. "The findings will undergo the necessary conservation treatment and will be exhibited to the public in the Polish Maritime Museum in Gdańsk."

The scale of the work is staggering. The project will involve moving approximately five million cubic meters of sea bottom soil and constructing roughly 2km of steel watertight walls. A rail and transport infrastructure will also have to be put in place. Work is scheduled to take 25 months and should end in November 2007.

LM