New dredger welcomed to the Mersey

The Shoalway is designed to maintain the Mersey as a port able to accommodate the larger vessels that are able to maximise the advantages of the widened Panama Canal.

Peel Ports Mersey has signed an initial three-year deal with Westminster Dredging with a further two-year option in which Shoalway will spend a large part of its time operating in the UK, particularly at Liverpool and Peel’s other ports in the region.

Peel Ports Mersey’s managing director Gary Hodgson said the company’s own fleet had come to the end of its working life and the final vessel The Mersey Mariner, which used outdated bucket-dredging technology, was decommissioned last year. A decision had to be made whether to replace it or bring in a specialist and Westminster was chosen as it was able to supply both expertise and state of the art equipment.