INTERNATIONAL DREDGING COMPANIES ATTRACTED BY BA

This will require investment of $95.65m up to 2006 and will make it possible to boost exports by $10 billion.

Five companies have acquired the bidding rules to undertake dredging work at the Argentinean ports of Mar del Plata, Quequen and Bahia Blanca in the province of Buenos Aires. The contract, which is worth $40m, involves dredging the access channels to the ports for a period of five years. Around 40m cubic metres of spoil will be recovered, with Bahia Blanca posing the biggest challenges followed by Ququen and Mar del Plata. Significantly, only international companies have indicated an interest in the contract which requires the deployment of highly specialised dredging equipment that is not available locally.