First Artificial Island to Be Built In The Americas
Panama City, Panama
Excerpt from Dredging Today
Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. (Amsterdam) has been awarded a contract from Ocean Reef Island Inc to construct an artificial island off the coast near the residential area of Punta Pacifica in Panama City.
The project, with a contract value of approximately € 55 million, is already underway and the project is expected to be completed mid 2012.
The project involves constructing an artificial island in the Pacific Ocean off the densely populated shoreline of Panama City.
Ten hectares of premier real estate land will be created by using 650,000 cubic meters of rock to form a perimeter and filling it with 1.4 million cubic meters of sand. A bridge will be built to connect the island to Panama City.
Boskalis is sourcing the sand for the land reclamation process from its own “borrow area” using a large trailer suction hopper dredger. Additional support equipment includes a clamshell crane and split barges.
The contract includes an option for an adjoining, second island of 9 hectares with a marina. Take-up of this option would extend the project by a year. The client is expected to make a decision on the optional additional island in the course of 2011.
The Boskalis strategy is designed to benefit from the key macro-economic drivers that are fueling global demand in our selected markets: global trade, increasing energy consumption, expanding population pressures and the challenges of changing climate conditions. This land reclamation project is driven by the necessity to create land to accommodate population growth in a densely populated region.
