Cairo: Egypt has signed two contracts with a consortium of six international firms for the dredging work of the new Suez Canal alongside the original one.
"It is a very challenging project if you look at the timeline. We are looking at moving about 180m cu mof soil in a time span of less than nine months operational time and we have one month to bring the equipment here to do that job," Bas van Bemmelen, area director of Dutch firm Boskalis, one of the six partners, said over the weekend.
The project was initially designed to be finished within three years, but Egyptian newly-elected president Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi ordered the new Suez Canal to be completed in just one year and be open for ship navigation in early August next year. [20/10/14]
