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DEC do Brasil: new contract in Santos (Brasil)

The environmental contract illustrates that important investment projects are still being awarded on the international market. Because of its experience with large-scale environmental orders and using a constructive and innovative all-in approach, DEC managed to win this project, despite strong competition. This order fits the company's policy of durable development which the DEME group uses as guiding principle for its strategy.

The order consists of remediating the Santos harbour site, where an illegal dump was created during the past couple of years. This is a turnkey project, which means that DEC not only guarantees its implementation but also designs the concept and arranged the financing and the accompanying guarantees, in good cooperation with the Belgian National Delcredere Service, Fortis Bank and the terminal investment company of the MSC group.

The sites are at the edge of a bay, making the substratum unstable. The dumped material leaches into a river and further into the sea.

All together this contaminated soil covers an area of 45 ha. The remediation requires processing 680,000 m³ of domestic and industrial waste. Part of this is highly contaminated waste. Brasil Terminal Portuario will later build a container terminal on the remediated site.

DEC won the order through its innovative approach. In addition to its experience with similar large orders abroad, including remediating the site for the London Olympics, three points in DEC's proposal were decisive in beating the competition:

• The major part of the 680,000 m³ soil to be remediated will be recycled by DEC and will be employed in useful reuse in the building of the container terminal. Of the 680,000 m³ DEC will only have to store a fraction of what is left over: about 100.000 ton.
• Applying a patented technique of soft soil improvement at the spot where the illegally dumped waste reaches into the water and is unstable. In this case the soil stays in place and cement columns are driven into the soil under high pressure. This way the side walls of the dump are protected from further leaching.
• DEC itself helped arrange financing of the project. This is done by Fortis and is guaranteed by the National Delcredere Service. Proving once again that the Delcredere Service's constructive attitude has a strong export-promoting effect for Belgian companies. 

The contract is worth € 75 million and offers work for almost two years. For this project, DEC will invest in additional equipment, such as a soil separation and soil washing installation and equipment for soft soil improvement. Now that the remediation concept has been approved, the permits will be applied for in the coming months. In July/August equipment and machines will be mobilized and the work will start before the end of the 2009. Because of agreements on building the container terminal, the soil remediation must be finished within 104 weeks.

Because of its large scale the project in Santos represents a real breakthrough by DEC on the international markets, now also outside of Europe. The project also proves that DEC is able to provide turnkey projects in the far reaches of the earth.

For the DEME group the order is a new illustration of the fact that even in the current economic environment, very important investments are being won on international markets. The Santos project again underlines the increasing importance of Latin America for DEME. The group recently already has been active in Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Panama and Mexico. Through its subsidiary Dredging International, DEME is already performing similar-sized environmental remediation in the Pasig River in Manila in the Philippines. The environmental order in Santos emphatically fits in a series of projects in durable development.

April 2009