Orascom Selects Custom Mud Cat E-Series Dredge to Maintain Assiut Supercritical Steam Power Station

ASSIUT, EGYPT – Orascom Construction PLC (OC:NASDAQ Dubai), one of the top ten engineering, procurement and construction contractors in Africa, recently commissioned a custom-built radio remote controlled Mud Cat MC 25EC E-Series dredge at Assiut Supercritical Steam Power Station in Assiut, Egypt. Assiut Supercritical Steam Power Station is a 650-megawatt power station located within the vicinity of Al Walidya Power Plant, in Assiut governorate. Orascom’s scope at the plant was all the mechanical works and Doosan installed the power turbines. The electric powered Mud Cat dredge will perform routine maintenance on the power plant intake which is fed directly from the Nile River. EDT won the order in a highly competitive international tender and has successfully commissioned over a dozen Mud Cat dredges in Egypt for the power, water and wastewater industries. Mud Cat’s local partner, Sadco, has been instrumental in bridging our technology with market opportunities.

“EDT’s team was very cooperative and professional since we started the bid and until they successfully delivered the Dredger. Their commercial team was very flexible in the negotiations and their technical team found smart solutions in order to eliminate the dead zones in the irregular shape of the intake, and finally the startup, commissioning and training was very smooth and professional and we managed to reach customer satisfaction,” said Bassem Eldabaa, Senior Project Coordinator, Operations Department/Industrial Unit, Orascom Construction.

The MC 25EC E-Series dredge, a proven system successfully supplied to Egypt on past international tenders, was custom designed with a 12.2m (40 ft.) dredging depth utilizing a low-turbidity 2.7m (8 ft. 10 in.) horizontal auger cutterhead. The cutterhead was equipped with four liner protection wheels to protect the concrete lined intake canal. The Mud Cat’s cutterhead creates a smooth even bottom profile that maximizes each cut without creating craters or ridges like hanging pump dredges. Additionally, the MC 25EC was designed with a cable drive traversing system with custom made recessed anchor points that allowed the dredge to achieve maximum coverage in the area of the intake without creating dead zones where material can accumulate. Mud Cat’s AutoSense^TM technology was incorporated into the traverse system which allows the dredge to get to the end of the cut and automatically reverse to the starting position for the next cut.

“We are very pleased that Mud Cat was selected for the Assiut Supercritical Steam Power Station project. Moreover, we really enjoyed meeting Orascom’s team in Cairo. This is not the first time we worked with Orascom on dredge deliveries for Egypt. They are a world class company with very talented team members,” said Ryan Horton, Vice President EDT.