Engineering and consulting firms setec and Royal HaskoningDHV have been selected by VNF – the French navigable waterways authority – to jointly provide programme management assistance over twelve years for a canal link extending from France to Belgium.
The vast new Canal Seine-Nord Europe will connect the basin of the Seine near Paris, to the Scheldt, near Lille, giving access to Belgian and Dutch inland waterways networks.
New Canal
Long awaited by the international water transport sector and the European Union, the new canal will be designed for vessels up to 4400 tonnes capacity. It will eliminate a major bottleneck on the European waterway network and provide links with six seaports to offer an alternative method of transporting freight with access into the heart of large urban areas.
The improved reliability and reduced logistics costs of inland water transport will raise the competitiveness of industry. The canal taps into the waterway’s potential for water transfer and tourism, and contributes to a reduction in greenhouse gases and consumption of non-renewable energy.
The canal will be 107 kilometres long, 54 metres wide, 4.5 metres deep and include six locks, three channel bridges, new infrastructure and 55 million cubic metres of dry earth works. The setec/Royal HaskoningDHV project is worth a minimum of € 80 million.
Joint Venture
Setec will be responsible for programme management. Royal HaskoningDHV will support setec with this and with the design of canals, locks and aqueducts. The European operator Via Donau of Austria will act as a sub-consultant to the joint venture.
Work is scheduled to begin in June 2015 for an opening in 2025, with a follow-up of the exploitation phase to 2027. The team members will operate from a common office with VNF in the coming weeks to begin planning for the demanding schedule.
Trans-European Multi-Modal Corridors
The Canal Seine-Nord Europe project was identified by the European Union in early 2014 as one of five major projects of the Trans-European Multi-Modal Corridors, marking an unprecedented commitment in terms of infrastructure. The canal investment is part of more than € 20 billion budgeted for 2014-2020, compared with € 8 billion during 2007-2013. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls confirmed the launch of the canal implementation in September 2014.
