More than 50% of all transport to BASF Antwerp comes and goes by ship. BASF will repair and renew its 6.5 km long quay wall over the next two years. A 250-metre-long new quay wall, including loading platform, will be built.
“Due to years of intensive use, a number of repairs to our quays are necessary,” we read in ‘Side by Side’, the magazine BASF produces for its neighbours. “We are clustering the works in the period from mid-2022 to early 2025.” More than 50% of all transport to and from the BASF Antwerp site goes by ship, we read. “For some products, BASF even relies exclusively on waterborne transport because the volumes are too large for a truck or rail car.”
Nuisance remains limited
“Nuisance is difficult to avoid with this kind of work, but we do everything we can to limit it,” BASF says. “The planning includes, for example, that piling works do not go on for too long at a stretch and fall at different times of the day. With a few exceptions, we plan works causing noise pollution between 7am and 8pm,” BASF reports.
Quay wall
Many different jobs are planned. “For instance, we will repair about two kilometres of quay wall,” BASF says. “We will install automated gangways (a bridge laid between shore and ship when a ship passes the quay, ed.). Where too many sandbanks have formed on the bottom of the dock, we will level them and protect them from new erosion.”
The most far-reaching task is the construction of a piece of new quay wall with loading platform. That quay wall will be 250 metres long and 25 metres wide where the dock is 15.5 metres deep. “For that, we need 3,600 tonnes of steel and 3,000 m3 of concrete. The earthworks will involve moving94,500 m3 of sand.”
BASF will work with specialised firms from floating pontoons, or under the water surface with culverts.
