Government awards $55.45 million contract to demolish existing “B” Jetty at Her Majesty’s Canadian Dockyard Esquimalt

A $55.45 million contract has been awarded to Pomerleau Inc.of Surrey, BC, by the Department of National Defence (DND) for the demolition of the existing “B” Jetty at Her Majesty’s Canadian Dockyard Esquimalt.

The contract also accounts for the preparation of the site for future rebuilding work.

The existing jetties “A” and “B” are no longer long enough or deep enough to accommodate modern ships as the docks were designed for ships that were much smaller and lighter.

“This major infrastructure project has reached another important milestone with the awarding of the “B” Jetty Site Preparation contract to Pomerleau Inc. The outdated jetties have served the Royal Canadian Navy well for over 70 years, but they are now well past their intended service life. The two new state-of-the-art jetties will greatly improve the ship-docking infrastructure for Canada’s naval vessels at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt,” said Harjit Sajjan, Minister of National Defence.

The project is aimed at providing structurally sound docking facilities to accommodate the country’s modern frigates and newly designed vessels joining the fleet between 2018 and the mid-2040s. This will be accomplished by designing the jetty to be longer and more versatile with new cranes to provide efficient loading and unloading of the ships.

Overall, the A/B Jetty Recapitulation Project comes at a price tag of $781 million. The project will be divided into three phase, in order to have one operational jetty at all times. Once a new “B” jetty is built, the demolition and rebuilding of jetty “A” will begin.

It is expected by DND that the project will create a total of 1400 jobs and sustain the economy in the region for many years.