Dredging Digest Nigeria

The Human Factors/causes The heart of man is so evil, but I do not subscribe to repaying evil with evil, no two individual is the same. What I am about to discuss in this post might surprise most readers but it is the reality of this business. So to continue from where I stopped in the previous post , I will unravel the mystery surrounding most diesel engine operations. 1) How important is the welfare of your staff especially the dredging crew? Some dredge owners employ 2 crews consisting of 1 dredge operator, 1 engineer, 2 Deckhands sometimes 1 sand-field person per crew for the day and night shift of 12hours respectively, one crew each shift, for 6 days in a week and 6-8 hours for each crew on Sunday. All this without leave or time-off and when a staff complains, he is threatened with suspension or outright sack by these dredge owners using the high unemployment rate in the country to their advantage. The only time these workers get to rest or go home is when the e...

It really feels good to be back writing articles on this blog again after about 5 months. It has been a busy period as I had to handle a site analysis and site set up job for reclamation work somewhere in the southern part of Nigeria. Also, a difficult decision making period too as I was also offered a job contract by a Qatari dredging firm based in Qatar, but due to some personal reasons, I was unable to honour that particular contract. I hope we can still work together sometime in the future. With that out of the way, let's go to the business of the day. Are you spending more than you should on diesel for your equipment? Do you suspect any shady dealings with regards to the diesel consumption level of your equipment? If yes, then going through this questions and some answers I put together with my experience as a dredge engineer on board dredgers and as site and project supervisor some years back will help you arrive at a certain solution to your diesel consumptio...

Welcome back from the holidays! I hope we are well rested.  So today I will be talking about various types of dredge equipment and their categories.  T hey can majorly be categorised into two main types namely: The trailing suction hopper dredger (TSHD) and The cutter suction dredger (CSD) Trailing suction hopper dredger (TSHD) Jan De Nul has the world’s two largest hopper dredgers. A trailing suction hopper dredger (TSHD) uses a suction pipe, whereby it loads the sediments into one or more hoppers. When fully loaded, the hopper sails to an area where it can dump the sediments through doors in the hull or it discharges or 'rainbows' the sediments to the designated area. The size of a hopper dredger is measured in metre cube.The two largest TSHD’s are owned by Belgium dredging company, Jan De Nul: Cristobal Colon and having a hopper capacity of 46,000 metre cube. In the ‘90s the jumbo hopper dredger was introduced (15,000 30,000m3), Jan De Nul’s vess...

Taking place between 23rd -26th April 2018 , the 8th Dredging and Land Reclamation Summit 2018 will gather the decision makers from Authorities and Operators responsible for ports, maritime, harbour, marine, river structure, coastal protection, reclamation and urban development, ministries of infrastructure and environments, project contractors, and main equipment providers to discuss and share insightful experience knowledge on existing successful and future dredging and land reclamation projects around the world. Industry Expert speakers will also share on the challenges encountered and proven techniques and solutions for the most complex dredging and land reclamation issues. 

A massive multi-agency search-and-rescue (SAR) operation is underway to find the missing crew members of a Chinese sand-dredger that capsized off Malaysia’s southern coast earlier on Wednesday, reports the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA). So far, authorities were able to save three Chinese citizens out of 18 crew members, and one was unfortunately found dead. MMEA Batu Pahat base director, Maritime Lieutenant Commander Muhammad Zulkarnain Abdullah said that all the crew were male and comprised of one Malaysian, an Indonesian and 16 Chinese nationals. The SAR operation is still ongoing for the remaining 14 crew members of the dredge JBB Rong Chang 8, who are feared to have drowned, announced the MMEA. According to MMEA, two of the crew members were in the hospital, while another was found injured in the incident’s location which was about 8.5 nautical miles off Parit Jawa in Muar. On the other hand, Sanifah Yusof, a senior Coast Guard official, told AFP that divers search...

As humans, we take care of our bodies. To be able to function at an optimal level for a long period of one's lifespan, and at every stage of your life (age wise), there are some certain foods you cut out of your diet and same time introduce new foods into your diet to help you manage your body for optimal performance. All of this is called maintenance, just as it is for the human body, a machine or engine needs proper constant maintenance to function optimally for a long time. and should not just be viewed as a machine that can be handled anyhow just because it doesn't react by talking or crying when it does if only you understand the machine language. How can maintenance serve as a source of wealth creation to the owner of the equipment? Comparing A and B who bought a dredging equipment for hundreds of millions and due to poor maintenance culture of Mr A, he's packed up after a few years maybe making him about 10% profit tops. Mr B, who understand the necessity of...

I hope you enjoyed and understood the last post , where I talked about how to engage in spare parts business in the dredging industry.  In Nigeria, the procurement and supply of diesel (AGO-Automotive Gas Oil) is one of the most lucrative businesses in the dredging industry but its major challenge is whom to supply to. On the average, most dredgers use about 33000 litres in a month. As an investor looking for an opportunity to invest in dredging business in Nigeria, the procurement and supply of AGO makes for a good investment. As most dredging companies are always in constant need of reputable and competent individuals that will constantly supply them with good quality AGO on time. Also, with engine oil and hydraulic. Another area which will generate a good return on investment in dredging business is in licensing and permit procurement. No dredger or it's company can dredge in a particular area or location without complete licensing or dredge permit. From th...

In the business of dredging, one key factor is time . To maximize profit and minimize cost in every aspect of a dredging business, you must have to be time conscious from the project planning to logistics, transportation of the equipment, decoupling and coupling of the equipment if it is to be conveyed by road, to the launching of the dredger, to the project execution which is the actual dredging, one must be very time conscious so as not to pay more than there is to be paid for in the project or in the hiring of equipment like lowbed, flatbed, cranes, bulldozers and excavators. To help you achieve all these, you can engage the services of a good dredge consultant familiar with all these technicalities and knows ways around them. During the project execution, you can't underestimate the importance of timing because most of the dredging parameters are calculated on hourly basis. From the amount of sand, distance or depth that is dredged per hour based on what one is dredging...

Just a little bit of the latest happenings in the world of dredging now as our series on wealth creation will continue in the subsequent post. The 22nd World Dredging Congress & Exposition (WODCON XXII) will take place in Shanghai, China, from 25-29 April 2019. The event is being organized by the World Organization of Dredging Associations (WODA), China Dredging Association (CHIDA) and Eastern Dredging Association (EADA). As the world’s top summit on dredging held every three years, the congress will bring together industry experts and elites to discuss the prospect of the harmonious development of dredging and ecology, and comprehensively display the whole continuously innovating dredging industry image since the new century, devoted to making greater contributions to global ecological culture construction. The theme of the WODCON XXII is “Enhance the Harmony between Dredging and Ecology” with the three main forums: Environmental dredging makes the world a better place; Towards ...

Most times we hear wealthy people talking about diversifying their source of income but do not know what to invest in, or some top civil servants who receive gratuities after retirement without a clue on what to do with it. At the end of the day, they either lose their money to fraudsters, wrong investment line or worse still not investing it at all and in that situation, those that fail to make any investment end up depleting their money without a clue on how to recover it back. It is better to take a risk by investing rather than risking zero investment at all. In the dilemma of what to invest in, I would encourage you to give a thought to investing in dredging either as an individual or a group of friends with a common goal which is making a good source of livelihood after retirement leaving legacies behind for your generations to come. In continuation of my earlier post on wealth creation via dredging , lakes/reservoir creation and ports and harbour construc...