Pumping the River Nile

In the Republic of Sudan eight new pumping stations have been built by the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources between Khartoum and Atbara to extract water from the River Nile for irrigation purposes.

General contractor ZADNA International Co, which has also built the irrigation canals, awarded Bauer Spezialtiefbau the contract for the foundations of the pumping stations.

While Bauer subsidiary Schactbau Nordhausen constructed the structural steel frames on which the water pumps and pipe connectors are mounted.

Each of the eight pumping stations sits on eight to 10 bored piles, with a diameter of 880 mm. Using two Bauer heavy-duty rotary drilling rigs – a BG 7 and a BG 12 – the piles, which were installed from both sides of the river, and over water from a barge, were socketed into hard soil at a depth of 15 m.