Jan De Nul Group is a

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

family-owned company, with the financial headquarters in

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

, that provides services relating to the construction and maintenance of maritime infrastructure on an international basis. Its main focus is

dredging Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing da ...

(including other forms of marine engineering), which accounts for 85% of its turnover. Other areas include civil engineering and environmental technology.

History

Founded in 1938, in Hofstade near

Aalst, Belgium Aalst (; french: Alost, ; Brabantian dialect, Brabantian: ''Oilsjt'') is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality on the Dender River, northwest from Brussels in the Flemish Region, Flemish Provinces of Belgium, ...

, Jan De Nul started as a construction company specialised in civil works and maritime construction. It was only in 1951 that the company entered into the dredging business. Recently it has forayed into offshore wind business and have been successful in securing major European wind energy projects. At the end of 2012, Jan De Nul had 6000 employees and a yearly turnover of 2 billion euro. Other major dredging companies are Dutch companies

Royal Boskalis Westminster Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. is a Dutch dredging and heavylift company that provides services relating to the construction and maintenance of maritime infrastructure internationally. The company has one of the world's largest dredging fleets, ...

and

Van Oord Royal Van Oord is a Dutch maritime contracting company that specializes in dredging, land reclamation and constructing man made islands. Royal Van Oord has undertaken many projects throughout the world, including land reclamation, dredging and beac ...

, and the Belgian

DEME In Ancient Greece, a deme or ( grc, δῆμος, plural: demoi, δημοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Athens and other city-states. Demes as simple subdivisions of land in the countryside seem to have existed in the 6th century BC and ear ...

. Jan De Nul was voted the most attractive employer in Belgium in 2008 and 2009.

Fleet

Jan De Nul has a fleet of 75 vessels, including 14 cutter suction dredgers, 28

trailing suction hopper dredger A trailing suction hopper dredger is a ship that has a full sailing capacity used to maintain navigable waterways, deepening the maritime canals that are threatened to become silted, to construct new land elsewhere or to replace sand eroded by ...

s, 20

split barge Split(s) or The Split may refer to: Places * Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia * Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay * Split Island, Falkland Islands * Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua Arts, enterta ...

s, 6 backhoe dredgers, 1 oil recovery vessel, 5 rock installation vessels and one cable installation vessel under construction. This includes the ''Cristobal Colon'', launched in 2008, and the world's largest dredger with a capacity of 46,000 m³. It can dredge to a water depth of 155m. Joined by her near-sister ship ''Leiv Eiriksson'' in 2010, Jan De Nul has one of the world's largest, if not the largest, fleets of hopper dredgers.

Projects

Major projects realised in part or whole by Jan De Nul include the

Panama Canal expansion project The Panama Canal expansion project ( es, ampliación del Canal de Panamá), also called the Third Set of Locks Project, doubled the capacity of the Panama Canal by adding a new lane of traffic allowing for a larger number of ships, and increasin ...

, the Bridgetown Port enhancement project, the Port Botany expansion, the

Manifa Field Causeway and Island Project Manifa is an annual feminist demonstration organized in connection with International Women's Day on March 8 in various parts of Poland. In Warsaw, it is organized by the informal group Alliance of Women. The name comes from the slang abbreviati ...

in Saudi Arabia, the

Palm Jebel Ali Palm Jebel Ali () is an artificial archipelago in Dubai, United Arab Emirates which began construction in October 2002, was originally planned to be completed by mid-2008 and has been on hold since. Creative Kingdom provided master planning servi ...

artificial island in Dubai, and the adjacent

Dubai Waterfront The Dubai Waterfront (now known as ''Waterfront'') was expected to become the largest waterfront and largest man-made development in the world. The project is a conglomeration of canals and artificial archipelago; it would occupy the last rema ...

. The

Takoradi Harbour The Takoradi Harbour is in the Western region of Ghana. It is located in the industrial district of Sekondi-Takoradi and is the oldest harbour in Ghana. The Takoradi harbour and the Tema Harbour are the only harbours in Ghana. History The idea ...

expansion project in

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

. In 2020-21 Jan De Nul Group installs a power inter-connector cable over a distance of 135 km and up to 1 km deep sea, connecting Crete island with mainland Greece.

Hijacked vessel

In April 2009, the Jan De Nul vessel "Pompei" was hijacked by

Somali pirates Somali may refer to: Horn of Africa * Somalis, an inhabitant or ethnicity associated with Greater Somali Region ** Proto-Somali, the ancestors of modern Somalis ** Somali culture ** Somali cuisine ** Somali language, a Cushitic language ** Somal ...

en route from

Aden Aden ( ar, عدن ' Yemeni: ) is a city, and since 2015, the temporary capital of Yemen, near the eastern approach to the Red Sea (the Gulf of Aden), some east of the strait Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000 people. ...

to the

Seychelles Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (french: link=no, République des Seychelles; Creole: ''La Repiblik Sesel''), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, V ...

. The ship and its crew of ten were released after 71 days on 28 June 2009, after De Nul had paid 2.8 million Euros, according to media reports.

Notes

External links

Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jan De Nul Construction and civil engineering companies established in 1938 Construction and civil engineering companies of Belgium Dredging companies Companies based in East Flanders Belgian companies established in 1938