REPORTS in this issue from:
- Brazil
- Hungary
- Italy
- Mongolia
- Qatar
- Singapore
- UAE
- United Kingdom
COMMENTS
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 QATAR
Finishing Touches To
Massive Ras Laffan
Port Expansion
(PHOTO ALBUM)
The civil engineering stage of the first phase of the major expansion of the LNG Port at Ras Laffan, Qatar is nearing completion after almost 3 years.
Specialist marine and costal engineering plant hire company, Abeko BV, has the contract to provide the machinery and operators required by Van Oord BV for the construction of the 22.5 kilometres of causeways and breakwaters. They are now applying the finishing touches before handing over to client for fitting out.
The contractors are currently undertaking the final surveys and, as appropriate, are working with the Abeko team to do any remedial and finishing work to ensure that all constructions are in accordance with design specifications.
This work calls for precision working in order not to disturb material already in place both from a variety of land-based equipment and from the sea, where an O&K RH90C mounted onboard the Abeko Server 1 is helping with final underwater profiling of the breakwaters.
As the first phase nears completion, the massive volume of material deployed is evident by the several kilometres of structures standing several meters above the water line.
Over 10.6 million t. of local rock ,together with a further 4.2 million tons imported from the UAE, has been put in place, either by side dump barges or by dump trucks. Over 1 million m³ of concrete was used by the prefabrication yards for production of 185.000 precast concrete antifers and 36,000 concrete acropods, which were for the armour layer construction of the breakwaters. The antifers range in size from 1.5 m³, 3.0 m³ and 3.5 m³. The acropods are from 3.0 m³ to 5.0 m³.
The rock and precast concrete elements were used to profile and protect the land reclaimed from the placing of more than 20 million m³ of dredged limestone and 25 million m³ of offshore sand.
 There is also more than 900,000 m² of geotextiles incorporated into the structures and the causeways and breakwaters are finished off with 3.4 m high crown walls and 50 m wide x 2.15 m deep reinforced road slabs (typical) for which more than 170,000 m³ of concrete was poured.
Throughout the project, the contractors have utilized 45 heavy-duty excavators and high-capacity crawler cranes, 40 rigid and articulated dump trucks and 20 wheel loaders as well as other support equipment. The number of people on site deployed by Van Oord and Abeko peaked at over 700. Work has progressed non-stop, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. [cont]
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