Dredging International was established in 1974 through the merger of the dredging division of Ackermans & van Haaren with Société Générale de Dragage (SGD).
The former has been engaged in capital and maintenance dredging works on the Scheldt since 1894, and was the main contractor on the huge expansion of the port of Antwerp as from 1956. SGD was established as an independent company in 1930 and also carried out maintenance dredging on the Scheldt, apart from major port extension works.
Ackermans & van Haaren was the proud owner of a fleet of top-class cutter suction dredgers, used during the construction of the new docks. SGD was famous for its engineering department and for a highly professional workforce manning bucket dredgers and trailing suction hopper dredgers. Both companies have been innovation leaders in their own right. Ackermans & van Haaren is known to have developed the very concept of suction dredgers, with a world-first realization in 1895, the Schelde-II. That tradition of innovation is alive more than ever in our days. In the past decade, Dredging International set a new benchmark in the industry, when the first jumbo hopper “Pearl River” was christened.
|
|
Both Ackermans & van Haaren and SGD have always been looking for foreign markets. Besides early assignments in Argentina, Brazil and Vietnam, Ackermans & van Haaren was involved in the construction of almost all French ports during the whole 20th century, both on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean coast. The company was also active in the construction of the Polish ports after the First World War, as well as in Helsinki and in pre-Revolutionary St.-Petersburg. Together with Baggerwerken Decloedt, SGD was involved in the famous contract for the construction of Bluff harbour on South Island, New Zealand, back in 1956. Building a deep seawater port at the antipodes not only put Bluff on the world map, but the Flemish dredging industry as well.