Consortium to Lead €928 Million Genoa Breakwater Project

Webuild will lead the consortium that will build a breakwater for the Port of Genoa with partners Fincantieri Infrastructure Opere Marittime, Fincosit and Sidra in a project valued at €928 million. Webuild will have a 40% stake in the consortium.

The breakwater — known in Italian as “Nuova Diga Foranea” — will be a unique project worldwide due to its scale and engineering complexity. It will be built offshore, leaving port activities uninterrupted. It will rest on an underwater foundation, whose varying depth will be up to 50 meters, making it one of the deepest in the world. It will cover a combined 6.2 kilometers.

The project will be the biggest renewal of the port’s infrastructure on the Ligurian coast in 25 years. The breakwater will widen the transit and maneuver areas for ships within the port area. By increasing its capacity to receive ships, the project will provide the port with the infrastructure requested by major shipping companies and help improve the competitiveness of the Ligurian and Italian port system. It will guarantee direct access to the port’s terminal facilities, as well as provide a wide turning basin for container ships. At up to 400-450 meters in length, these ships are double the size of those that the port can now receive. The project’s impact on the port, the city and the country will be felt from the outset with the creation of more than 1,000 direct and indirect jobs.

The project entails the construction of a breakwater approximately 450 meters beyond the current barrier. In Phase A, its foundation will be created with an estimated 7 million tons of rock mass up to 50 meters underwater. Approximately 100 prefabricated caissons of reinforced concrete will be laid upon the foundation. The caissons will be up to 33 meters high, 35 meters wide and 67 meters long, each equal to a 10-story building.

The infrastructure will be enhanced by innovative technology, construction techniques and sustainability characteristics together with the application of the principles of a circular economy, including the recovery re-use and transformation of excavated material.