Jenkins Marine are thrilled to announce they have been awarded a new significant dredging contract. The work is sheduled to commence on 3^rd August in Plymouth, working for Volker Stevin on part of their £50M redevelopment of the Thanckes Oil Fuel Depot which provides fuelling facilities for the Royal Navy at Devonport Naval Base. Volker Stevin are working for the Defence Infrastructure Organisation on behalf of MOD.

This is a capital dredging project to dredge and dispose of circa 15,000m³ material from adjacent to the new Jetty.  High levels of scrutiny from the clients demands high standards of work and accuracy; something that Jenkins Marine prides itself on, and we will help to continue these standards using our newly installed Prolec 3D RTK GPS dredge control system on our 50T excavator (See June 2020’s News: Dredging Goes Digital).

Bill Hughes, DIO project manager, said: “This is a key milestone in the Navy Oil Fuel Depot upgrade programme. There have been considerable environmental challenges and constraints that have been successfully navigated through the excellent efforts of the Project team and we look forward to working in collaboration with VolkerStevin to ensure the successful delivery of this operationally critical project.”

Jenkins Marine’s on site team will be tidal working over 24hrs, 7 days a week using backhoe dredger Doreen Dorward and our two 300m³ capacity self-propelled split hopper barges Nab and Needles which are fast, reliable and highly manoeuvrable vessels, capable of accessing more restricted sites.

The Marine licence conditions have been extensive for this project and, to mitigate any pUXO residual risks to ALARP, two 6m x 6m square debris screens with 0.5m x 0.5m holes had to be fabricated and installed on each hopper barge, capable of hinging during disposal operations. Jenkins Marine had to custom design, fabricate and install the screens with assistance from Welding and fabrication contractors Southampton Marine Services prior to the start of the project.

The works are expected to last around 6 weeks.