A key sustainable development project for the Occitanie region 

During 2019, the Occitanie region entrusted our teams with the extension of the port of Port-La Nouvelle, a strategic sustainable development project as part of its new approach: the Plan Littoral 21. The extension of this port, France's third-largest in the Mediterranean, represents a real challenge for this ambitious approach, supporting the energy transition. These construction efforts will enhance the port's attractiveness by welcoming new-generation ships and making it a logistics hub for the future development of floating wind turbines in the Mediterranean. 

Welcoming new-generation ships 

To enhance its appeal, this historic port required a renewal. In fact, its dimensions restricted access for certain ships that were too long and wide to navigate through. To address this, our teams built a new port basin consisting of two rubble-mound breakwaters, one measuring 605 metres long to the south and the other 2,430 metres long to the north, along with a 4.5-hectare platform within the basin.

The construction of the north and south breakwaters represented a technical challenge for our teams. At the start of the works, the seabed was crossed by a Sea Line, an oil pipeline incapable of supporting the weight of a new breakwater. The teams therefore began by building the end of the northern breakwater by sea, before starting work on the land section. As access to the existing southern breakwater is only possible by sea, the entire extension was also executed by sea. The two sections of the northern breakwater were connected over a year ago, enabling the dismantling of the old structure and the accommodation of larger ships from the summer of 2022 (up to 225 metres long and 36 metres wide). This marked the initiation of the breakwaters' finishing phase, recently concluded.
 

The journey concludes for our teams! They took up a major challenge: dealing with marine weather conditions (swells, wind direction, storms), requiring mobilization 7 days a week and 24 hours a day since 2021, especially during the summer periods, which are more favourable for marine work. Congratulations to everyone involved in this project!