Dutch Princess Beatrix Lock officially opened

Since September 2016, Jan De Nul Group has been working in the contractor combination Sas van Vreeswijk on the construction of the third Princess Beatrix Lock near Utrecht in the Netherlands.

Yesterday, Feb. 6, 2019, Dutch Princess Beatrix officially opened the lock in the presence of Dutch Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management Cora van Nieuwenhuizen. Ringing a ship's bell, she gave the go-ahead for the first official passage of ships through the new lock.

The official opening marks the end of a 2.5-year construction period. The two lock heads are 30 x 60 meters each. Each lock head contains two lock gates weighing 490,000 kilograms each, 28 meters wide, 14 meters high and 6.25 meters thick. This new lock incorporates 44,875 m³ of concrete and 17,900 tons of reinforcement. Sas van Vreeswijk was also responsible for widening the access in the Lek Canal to the locks. For this, 2 million m³ were excavated.

Jan De Nul Group has years of experience in lock construction. For example, Jan De Nul's civil division was involved in the construction of the Kieldrecht lock in the Port of Antwerp, the inland navigation locks in Harelbeke, Evergem and Ivoz-Ramet, and the new locks in the Panama Canal. In addition, the third Princess Beatrix Lock is the first PPP contract for Jan De Nul in the Netherlands.