The newest and largest dredger of the Suez Canal Authority, the “Hussein Tantawy”, has joined the project to expand and deepen the southern area of the Suez Canal the head of the Suez Canal Authority in Egypt Osama Rabie announced.
During his inspection of the dredger Tuesday afternoon, Rabie said that the project is working from 132 kilometer to 162 kilometers using Suez Canal numbering to help develop the southern sector of the canal’s navigational course.
Rabie inspected the developments of dredging work in the two parts of the project, which includes the duplication of the Smaller Bitter Lakes area from 122-123 km, and the expansion and deepening of the southern area of the Suez Canal starting from 132 km to 162 km.
He said that the total size of dredging since the beginning of work in mid-May in duplicating the canal in the Bitter Lakes totaled nearly five million cubic meters of water saturated sand.
Rabie stressed that the authority is committed to completing the project according to the specified schedule by taking measures that will accelerate the pace of work on the project, such as coordination with the al-Tahadi (The Challenge) Egyptian Emirati marine dredging company to deploy its dredgers.
The company’s “Marfaa” dredger has already joined the project, and several other dredgers belonging to the company will join successively.
The authority’s dredgers will work in the expansion and deepening project area to ensure parallel work on different parts of the project.
The Al-Tahadi Company is an Egyptian joint stock company. The Canal Ports Company, one of the Authority’s subsidiaries, owns 51 percent stake in the company.
According to Rabie, dredger “Mohab Mameesh” is scheduled to join the work in the expansion and deepening area after the completion of the dredging work assigned to it in one of the major national projects in East Port Said Port.
The project to develop the navigational course of the canal aims to double the area extending over ten kilometers starting from the kilometer 155 to kilometer 132, in addition to expanding and deepening the southern area of the Suez Canal, starting from the kilometer 132 to kilometer 162, 40 meters wide to the east at a depth of 72 feet, which will increase the navigational safety by 28 percent.
