Boskalis and Van Oord have won a major dredging contract valued at approximately EUR 500 million for the Malmporten Project at Sweden’s Port of Luleå. Awarded by the Swedish Maritime Administration and the Port of Luleå, the contract will be carried out through an equal joint venture between the two dredging contractors.
Luleå, capital of the northern province of Norrbotten, is undergoing a significant green industrial development driven by investments in fossil-free steel and sustainable energy. The ongoing transformation of the Port of Luleå will strengthen its role as a key regional logistics hub supporting this transition.
Under the contract, the joint venture will deepen the port’s fairway and harbor basin, allowing it to accommodate vessels with a draft of up to 14.7 meters and a cargo capacity of up to 85,000 tons. This marks a significant increase of nearly two times the current capacity of 45,000 tons. This expansion will improve operational efficiency and contribute to lower emissions per ton of transported cargo.
Project execution is scheduled to commence in the spring of 2027. Activities will take place during the ice-free seasons and will be completed before mid-August 2030. The works involve dredging approximately 14 million cubic meters of material, including sand, silt, clay, moraine soils, boulders and significant quantities of fresh rock. Part of the dredged material will be reused for land reclamation to enable the development of a new deepwater port area.
A broad range of specialized equipment will be deployed, including trailing suction hopper dredgers, backhoe dredgers, grab dredgers, and drill & blast platforms. Environmental protection is a key focus of the project. Mitigation measures will include the use of silt screens, bubble curtains, environmental buckets, turbidity monitoring and innovative dredging techniques to minimize environmental impact.
Boskalis and Van Oord are familiar with the project area, having carried out preparatory dredging works in Luleå in 2024. These earlier activities involved the removal of approximately 1.5 million cubic meters of sediment, hard moraine soils, and large boulders typical of the northern Gulf of Bothnia.
Boskalis’ strategy is aimed at leveraging key macro-economic factors that drive worldwide demand in our markets: the expansion of the global economy, increasing energy consumption, global population growth, and the challenges associated with climate change. This project is driven by the trend toward larger vessels with deeper drafts and supports both the growing demand for raw material exports from northern Sweden and Finland, the transition to sustainable steel production and the demand for renewable fuels.
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