Approximately 500 km north of the city of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, a new recreation area is currently being established by The Red Sea Development Company (TRSDC) as part of the Red Sea Project that will combine nature, culture and adventure. For this purpose, an archipelago off the coast of Saudi Arabia is being developed for sustainable tourism in this region. By 2030, a total of 28,000m² of beach, desert, mountains and volcanic areas on 22 islands will be transformed into an environmentally-friendly tourism centre in Saudi Arabia.
TRSDC appointed marine contracting specialist Archirodon to design and build the bridge to the Shurayrah Island, as well as two smaller bridges. Archirodon tasked Saudi Bauer Foundation Contractors Ltd., a subsidiary of Bauer Spezialtiefbau GmbH, with the construction of piles for several bridge structures. The scope of the project involving Bauer was execution and testing of three onshore preliminary test piles, execution of 37 onshore piles, and execution of 87 offshore piles from a barge. The risks associated with execution of the onshore piles were minimal. For the offshore piles, the main risk was marine transportation and working from a barge.
In the first phase of the project, Bauer constructed three test piles for a load test, and in the second phase, 37 onshore piles with diameter of 1,300 mm for two new bridges.
For the central bridge, which connects the main island of Shurayrah with the mainland, Bauer installed 60 piles with diameter of 1,500 mm and 27 piles with diameter of 1,300 mm in the third phase, off the coast.
For the onshore piles, the drilling process involved driving of provisory short casing, drilling to required depth by bucket / auger and core barrel at some locations. For the offshore piles, the drilling process involved driving of permanent casing using vibrohammer and drilling to required depth by bucket / auger and core barrel at some locations.
Archirodon’s purpose-built floating crane barge, vibrohammer and crew were used to assist the Bauer piling team to construct the 87 offshore piles. A Bauer BG 28 drilling rig was placed and safely secured on the barge to carry out the drilling work.
Saudi Bauer selected two junior operators to join the team for training courses for both the onshore and offshore operations. The work began in September 2021 and was successfully completed in February 2022.
“This is not a typical working location even for us. What’s important here above all are precision and good logistics by Archirodon,” says project manager Mudasser Iqbal. “Fortunately, the timing for material deliveries by barge was optimal, so we were able to keep to the schedule. Since our risk assessment was thorough, there were no surprises during execution.”