Jan De Nul’s offshore installation vessel Les Alizés is set to transport and install monopile foundations for Scotland’s Inch Cape offshore wind farm. Meanwhile, the company launched a major dredging campaign in Senegal to support the development of the Ndayane deepwater port.
Jan De Nul’s offshore installation vessel Les Alizés will be deployed to transport and install the monopile foundations off the Angus coast in Scotland for the Inch Cape offshore wind farm.
In December 2024, Les Alizés finished its first project: 107 monopile foundations on German wind farms Gode Wind 3 and Borkum Riffgrund 3. This spring, it will continue with the installation of 72 monopiles on RWE’s Thor project.
The Jan De Nul vessel is on long-term charter to RWE and is being made available to other developers during periods of downtime. Jan de Nul said the Inch Cape project is a good example of offshore wind developers sharing equipment to help build out more offshore wind capacity.
Jon Darling, head of construction delivery at RWE, said: “We are aware that our long-term charter vessels from Jan De Nul may not always be fully utilised on our projects. We are highly sensitive to the pressures on the global offshore industry, created by the limited availability of these highly capable construction vessels. We are pleased to make the vessel available for this unique and highly collaborative initiative, supporting Inch Cape’s continued drive to deliver new UK energy infrastructure and to evolve towards net zero.”
Jan De Nul has also been active in Africa. It has has begun dredging a 5 km access channel in the Atlantic Ocean, between Senegal’s port of Dakar and the port in Ndayane. With Dakar nearing maximum capacity, operator DP World is developing a new port in Ndayane, 50 km south of the capital.
Jan De Nul will dredge 10 million cu m of soil to form the access channel. The dredged material will be used to recover an 89 ha area from the sea, which will act as a terminal for container storage and maritime services. Jan De Nul’s scope of work is projected to take 2.5 years to complete.
“The seabed in the Atlantic Ocean consists mainly of hard rock and the conditions can be rough. We are deploying our largest and most powerful cutter suction dredger to get the job done,” said Dominique Bombaert, area manager for Senegal at Jan De Nul.
Once operational, the port of Ndayane will be able to simultaneously accommodate two of the world’s largest container ships, making it one of the largest ports in West Africa.
An environmental impact study was conducted by Jan De Nul before its work commenced, and the company will continually monitor water quality throughout the project.
Jan De Nul is also busy developing the “Middle Corridor”, which is serving as an alternative maritime trade route to the Suez Canal.
