Dredging of the Paldiski South Harbour fairway

Paldiski South Harbour is an important cargo harbour in Estonia and in terms of volume of cargo the third biggest. As there is global trend that vessels are getting larger to allow to reduce unit costs, it is crucial to make investments by ports to meet the needs of cargo operators.

Currently, the draught of the access channel in the Paldiski South Harbour is 14.5 metres and the width 120 metres. These conditions are appropriate for vessels not larger than 230 metres and wider than 35 meters. The parameters of the fairway are limiting the size of vessels and the competitiveness of the operators, specifically oil products operators and by that the competitiveness of the harbour itself.

The basic and main goal of the project is to dredge the Paldiski fairway and the harbour basin to desired depth from 14.5 meters to 15.5 meters. The width of the channel is 120 meters, after implementation of the action it will be 180 meters. The length of the channel is 1800 meters and will remain the same.

Due to the implementation of the project there will be also navigational risk mitigation and decrease of environmental footprint by enabling use of large vessels (60,000 – 70,000 GT) to transport larger amount of cargo with single port call.

The sea environment and birds are being monitored before, during and after the completion of works. Thus, continuous monitoring of environment is essential part of the project to emphasize the responsibility to environment. Continuous monitoring of sealife is important, we want the ecological footprint of our activities is kept to a minimum and the Baltic Sea to be the best environment for sea animals and birds.

TWIN-PORT 2

The goal of the project is to offer better service to passengers of Europe’s one of the busiest ferry routes between Tallinn and Helsinki by developing the infrastructure in both Tallinn and Helsinki ports, as well as supporting the completion of the LNG-fueled passenger ferry Megastar.

TWIN-PORT 3

TWIN-PORT 3, as the name reflects, is the third CEF project in a row. It is a collaboration project between ferry operators (Tallink, Viking Line and Eckerö Line), the ports of Tallinn and Helsinki and the City of Helsinki.

The project will concentrate on reducing the environmental impact of the increasing Ro-Pax traffic and continues improving the multimodal transport link between Helsinki and Tallinn.

The main objectives are to offer better travel experience for passengers, develop the port’s infrastructure to reduce noise and pollution in port area, and upgrade security systems. In the City of Helsinki several traffic investments are planned in connection with the Helsinki West Harbour to improve the transportation system and thus reduce congestion on the last-mile.

• Port of Tallinn will install auto-mooring and on-shore power supply (OPS) systems to the Old City Harbour of Tallinn. By using the OPS, ferries can use power from the power grid from shore, which allows them to shut down their diesel engines when they are berthing overnight, resulting in quiet operations, without vibration or CO2 exhaust gases and air pollutants, thus reducing noise and emissions in the port area.

• Port of Tallinn will also upgrade its safety systems and continue constructing sewerages to enlarge the sewage receiving service to all the passenger ships quays in the Old City Harbour.