Dredges work day and night to open a 6.5 km long access canal to bring the ocean inland to where the EBX Group is building its new terminal and shipyard
In this edition, Grandes Construções brings its readers a meeting between team doubles to provide details on two construction projects that are underway and taking greater shape to bring about the revitalization of the Brazilian shipbuilding industry, strengthen the country’s logistics infrastructure and, furthermore, create jobs and promote the development of the northern part of Rio de Janeiro state and, consequently, of Brazil.
What we’re talking about is the construction of the LLX company’s second multipurpose seaport terminal (TX2), located in the Açu Superport, and of the UCN (Unidade de Construção Naval / Shipbuilding Unit) - the new OSX company shipyard. These companies are, respectively, the logistics arm and the offshore naval industry of entrepreneur Eike Batista’s EBX Group. Our interview guests are engineers Luiz Otávio de Amorim - general manager of engineering at LLX, and Ivo Dworschak Filho - executive manager of UCN.
Luiz Otávio de Amorim speaks about the progress of works on TX2, the second onshore seaport terminal which is part of the Açu seaport complex. He also speaks of the works to open the access canal which will enable the installation of the new shipyard at that location.
The access canal will have a total of 6.5 km in length, 300 meters in width and a depth of 18 meters at its entrance and 10.5 meters at the end - depths that are required for the traffic of supply vessels. Along the banks of the canal, several companies will establish operations to provide support and supply parts, components and services to the offshore industry: the LLX Multipurpose Terminal LLX, and what, according to the EBX Group, will be the most modern shipyard in Latin America.
With construction work having begun in August of last year, the canal is already 2,500 meters long, eight meters deep and over 250 meters wide. At this time, the company is at work dredging the canal and carrying out the excavation of pits for the foundations; the first step for the placement of the concrete blocks for the construction of the TX2 terminal’s breakwater and the UCN.
Ivo Dworschak Filho speaks particularly of the OSX shipyard; designed to be the most modern shipbuilding complex of the Americas. The shipyard (UCN) was designed to support the country's development in the exploration and production of oil and gas. At the UCN, metallic materials will be processed for the construction of new units/rigs for the exploration and production of oil and gas, such as FPSO (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading) vessels, fixed platforms and TLWP (Tension Leg Wellhead Platforms) as well as drillships and semi-submersible drilling rigs.
Dworschak Filho reveals that as early as the first quarter of 2013, operation is scheduled to start in the first stage of the project to handle the pending orders made to OSX, which already has vessels for the production of oil and gas in Brazil. “To those who do not understand shipbuilding, what we're doing here is unthinkable. We are building a leading-edge, high-tech shipyard inland, on the continent, to only at the end of all this bring in the sea to bathe this yard,” said the engineer, demonstrating his enthusiasm for the project.
Presently under construction, TX2 will have terminals for mooring of ships carrying dry bulk materials, steel products, coal, pig iron, slag and granite; besides liquids in bulk, general cargo and vehicles. Along TX2 piers there will also be traffic of equipment and materials intended for use in the exploration and production of oil and gas, jackets and modules for offshore units. The TX2 will also offer an area facing the inner canal of sheltered waters, with 1.7 million square meters for rental to companies that provide support for offshore oil and gas activities.
Work on the TX2 and on the new shipyard is performed concurrently with the construction of the first terminal (the TX1 - offshore) which is also in the Açu seaport complex and is devoted to the exportation of iron ore and petroleum. Together, the TX1 and the TX2 can have up to 40 berths and 17 km of piers, providing the Açu Superport with the capacity to move up to 350 million tons of cargo per year, ranking it among the three largest ports the world.
Grandes Construções – Upon what stage of the project are most of the works focused at this time?
Luiz Otavio de Amorim - Work is presently focused on two parallel fronts. One of these fronts is the TX2, the onshore terminal of the Açu Superport. We are working on the construction of the North Jetty and the South Jett. We’re making the North Jetty our priority because the first concrete caissons that will be used in assembling the breakwater will arrive in September of this year. These first caissons are being built at Porto do Forno in Arraial do Cabo (RJ) with the ‘Kugira’ (Editor’s note: Europe's largest floating dyke which is in Latin America for the first time to manufacture these concrete floating blocks i.e. caissons). Each caisson is 66 m long, 24 m wide, 21 m long and weighs 18 tons, equivalent to a seven-storey building. Concurrently, work is continuing to open the access canal to the TX2, on the inside. At this stage of the work we are now at 2,500 meters in length and about 300 meters in width.
GC – When is work on the canal expected to be concluded?
Luiz Otávio – At the present pace of work, it is likely that by February of next year we will have practically completed the entire canal.
GC – How many dredges are at work in opening the canal?
Luiz Otávio – We had three dredges at work. One is of the cutter head type, responsible for suction and cutting for the execution of a hydraulic landfill. This cutter dredge is capable of removing 1.2 million cubic meters of sand per month. The others are of the Hopper type, which take the dredged material that is not suitable for civil construction to be discharged out at sea at a distance of approximately 20 miles. But at the beginning of August another cutter dredger arrived with a capacity to pump material that was good for construction, to make a landfill, at a distance of eight kilometers.
GC – How much material is expected to be dredged by the time the opening of the access canal is concluded?
Luiz Otávio - The expected total is about 50 million cubic meters of dredged material. Of this total, half, approximately, should be used in the hydraulic landfill; grading material for the industrial area of the Açu Superport complex.
GC – When will the shipyard start operating?
Ivo Dworschak Filho – Our forecast is for partial operation to begin in the first quarter of 2013.
GC - From what we’ve heard, the shipyard isn’t even ready yet and it already has a considerable number of orders to be met. How large is this portfolio of orders and what does it mean for the project?
Ivo Dworschak Filho - Today, we have firm contracts for five FPSOs (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading) vessels, four fixed platforms of the WHP type (Wellhead Platforms); 11 MR (medium range) ships which are tank-type vessels with a capacity of around 50 tons, and a PLSV (Pipe-laying Support Vessel) specialized in the installation of subsea pipes. That’s a total of 21 units, which is a very comfortable situation, on one hand, but it is also quite challenging if we think that we started earthmoving in July 2011 and that the construction of a shipyard involves a series of conditioning factors that have to be confronted; it’s an outdoor job. And yet we have a number of contracts signed with foreign companies demanding we perform and establishing penalties for non-performance.
GC – How many employees are at work on the job site?
Ivo Dworschak Filho - Today, we have 350 employees and we are investing in the training of manpower. We have established a strong formal partnership with the Federation of Industries of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Firjan) and the National Service for Industrial Training (SENAI), in the city of Campos and São João da Barra, qualifying manpower in the region for employment in the shipyard. We are recruiting this workforce - in our first call for applications we had about 20,000 candidates and we are now training these young people who will have to learn not only about conventional shipbuilding, but also some of the specific particularities of this project which is focused on automation. Therefore, these young people will also be trained in automation, which is the distinction that provides a competitive advantage.
GC – When the shipyard is operating at its full capacity, how much manpower will it require?
Ivo Dworschak Filho - To operate at full capacity, we estimate a demand of about 10 thousand direct jobs, but we imagine that for every job created within the shipbuilding cluster, we will generate three or four other indirect jobs outside the shipyard. This is an extraordinary condition for the development of the region and of Brazil as a whole. Outside this cluster, those who will manufacture parts, equipment, provide services and support to us here will be our partners. The first "boom" that we identified was in the sector of civil construction, which practically caused the exhaustion of the resources available in the region. It is virtually impossible to find masons, bricklayers, specialists in formwork, painters, etc. around here. There is a very strong demand. The area of services, hospitality and food, for instance, also benefits directly from this venture. One can already see a wave of progress and prosperity sweeping the region that is influenced by the complex.
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