About us

Trail blazing and leaving positive tracks for future generations.

As a Belgian dredging and hydraulic engineering group, D.E.M.E. has won a prominent position on the world market in a highly specialized and complex discipline. The company fosters a strong innovative approach and has indeed been a trend-setter and a pioneer in technical innovation throughout its history. The Group can look back on nearly 150 years of experience in its core dredging and land reclamation activities and hydraulic engineering. At present DEME has a permanent workforce of 3,500 persons.

A diversified approach enables us to offer our clients total solutions for their port and waterway developments and large-scale land reclamation projects. We supply fluvial and marine aggregates to the construction industry. Our oil-and-gas specialists specialize mainly in excavating and backfilling trenches for oil and gas pipeline laying, constructing landfalls for the same pipelines, and protecting and stabilizing pipelines by precision stone dumping to very great depths (1000 m!). Apart from dredging, we have built up an enviable track record in horizontal and vertical drilling techniques, building fixed near-shore and offshore structures such as radar stations, weather stations and wind farms, using high-quality bitumen applications to protect dike bodies and river and sea beds, wreck clearance, dry earth moving, and many other activities.

Dedicated techniques have been developed to dredge in an environmentally friendly way, treat and clean contaminated sludge and polluted soil, construct landfills and dumping areas for industrial and domestic waste, and so on. These activities are co-ordinated by DEC Environmental Contractors N.V. We offer global solutions and we routinely team-up with the client on the basis of partnering principles - aiming at a win-win situation through co-operation.

We are strongly committed to Quality Assurance schemes, as is reflected in a wide range of ISO certificates. DEME Group is working on the five continents, operating through a network of branch offices, subsidiaries and agencies from Mexico and Nigeria to Australia, from Caracas over Rome to Shanghai. Activities are well spread over the globe, balancing risks in one area with opportunities in another one. Annual turnover over the past five years has averaged around € 1 billion. Orders on hand are worth over € 1,8 billion. Environmental activities account for approximately 15 percent of Group turnover.

We operate one of the most versatile and modern fleets in the world, made up of almost 300 vessels, among which over 80 main dredging and hydraulic engineering vessels. Both in types and in sizes we own and operate the entire range of vessels, providing us strength in every segment of our activity.

DEME provides its dredging specialists with a thorough in-house training on continuous basis. To that end the necessary training infrastructure is permanently available and being expanded within the company. At SDI’s Lambersart offices a brand new training centre for young seamen was officially inaugurated on 30th September 2005. It is fitted with a fully automated electronic dredging simulator (a scale 1/1/ reproduction of the dredging desk of the new cutter dredger D’Artagnan) which simulates all important aspects of the dredging process to our trainees on an as-real basis.

DEME faces the future of worldwide development with confidence based on an innovative approach, with care for the environment and dedication to sustainable development.