SATO builds the largest floating dock of Spanish design and technology

On 5 December, 2009, the SATO Levante floating dock reached port for its final assembly. At 60 m long and 36m wide, it will be the biggest to be built exclusively from Spanish design and technology and the second biggest of the national construction companies.

Consolidated as one of the top Spanish maritime construction companies, Sociedad Anónima Trabajos y Obras (SATO), subsidiary of the OHL Group, began the construction of this dock, specific for the building of concrete blocks, two years ago in the framework of its policy of modernisation of the maritime construction equipment park.

SATO Levante was equipped with the latest advances in technology, both in aspects of design and in everything related to the process of production of the concrete blocks, as well as in the safety of the operation.

Working with SATO’s technical services, the planning and control of the dock construction was taken care of by Valencia-based naval engineers Cotenaval. The casing was built in the Setubal shipyard (Portugal) and towed to Alicante on a journey that began on 27 November.

In the Port of Alicante’s Terminales Maritimas del Sureste ( TMS) terminal, the assembly will now be carried out. This entails the incorporation of all the equipment and assistance elements required for it to be able to function, as well as the necessary functional tests on it as a whole.

In two or three months, once these operations have been completed, the SATO Levante will be towed to its first destination, the Port of Barcelona, where it will be used to build the blocks for OHL and SATO’s extension project, of 1,000 m, of the fixed wharf to the Levante dock

The TMS terminal was chosen for the assembly of the dock for several reasons: firstly, for the facilities offered there, for its good location and for its availibility of land and sea space; secondly, for its proximity to Alicante and Barcelona; and thirdly, because OHL is 100 % owner of TMS, the company which operates the new southern extension terminals of the Port of Alicante.