With the ever-increasing human and vehicular population, transportation is taking its toll all across the world. Rails, bridges, expressways, etc need to be built and rebuilt on a war footing basis to avoid congestion on the tarmac and logistical nightmares. With the situation becoming grim each day as the required infrastructure funds run into millions, governments across the globe are exploring ways to limit or contain the cost and debt to the exchequer while not impeding development. This is a tough position to create a balance. America’s President Biden promised to spend huge on infrastructure while countries like India are betting big on roads and coastal shipping. Smaller, newer countries like Bangladesh too, are spending heavily on the vast and wide lake and river networks all across Bangladesh. The recent Parana Paraguay waterway development can also be considered in this regard. Free and smooth flow of cargo vessels through deep inland waterways cuts carbon emissions by tonnes and the recent developments in the shipping sector to further cut down on the emissions by adopting CNG, Biofuel, etc and a renewed focus on renewable energy as an alternative to fossil fuels will further ease the burden on the environment.
The sizes of ships have also overgrown with time. From the Panamax to Suez Max and now to the size of the famous EVER GIVEN now becoming the quiet normal, the pressure is on the port managements worldwide to increase the draft and access to the approach channels to the ports to allow unhindered passage of the humongous vessels which call at their ports each day.
For the smoother, efficient transportation of cargo through inland waterways as well as the shipping channels, the dredging companies need to carry out periodic maintenance dredging. Dredging happens to be the next big crucial business with great ROE potential. The theborneopost, a regional news portal in Malaysia recently carried a news item in which the newly elected Legislative member was seen pressing on the need to carry out the dredging process in order to help navigation and flood mitigation. It is heartening to see that leaders all over the world are convinced about the need to maintain their waterways. With the increased thrust on shipping as a choice of logistics, the days to come will witness more and more floating of global tenders for shipping channel deepening and port draft maintenance dredging from countries all over the world. Global majors like Boskalis, Van Oord and the Jan De Nul Group will compete for the huge reclamation or dredging works while smaller regional players like will get to develop the regional riverways and deepen the riverbeds.
The industry is poised to grow and the dredging sector will stand to benefit the most from it.
Welcome, 2022.
