Dead Sea Works Ltd has awarded a major contract to German-based ThyssenKrupp GfT Bautechnik GmbH, one of the world's leading integrated suppliers of marine and civil engineering solutions and subsidiary of German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp, to seal a dam in the southern Dead Sea. The contract includes the delivery of 55,000 metric tons of steel, including roughly 38,000 mt of sheet piles and around 17,000 mt of steel pipe with welded-on corner profiles.
Dead Sea Works mines table salt, bromine and other salts from the Dead Sea, which constitutes one of the world's richest mineral deposits. The already-completed dam regulates the water level in the mining area. The sealing measures are intended to prevent the dam from being undercut by seawater.
The deep ground is not suitable for mechanical driving work, and so the sheet piles and pipes will be sunk by their own weight into a specially prepared trench over a length of 18 kilometers. This will create one of the world's biggest diaphragm walls with inserted sheet pile walls.
Shipments from Bremerhaven in Germany to the Israeli sea ports of Ashdod or Haifa have already started. Deliveries for the project are scheduled for completion at the end of 2012.