Dredge manufacturers outline trends, developments

By |  May 26, 2022

Archibald says dredge operators deal with similar issues as stone quarries when it comes to getting permits issued or renewed.

Whereas quarries contend with issues such as vibration and truck traffic, sand and gravel dredging faces blowback when it comes to water after it is used.

“Are you recycling [the water], are you putting it into settling ponds, what are you doing,” Archibald says. “You’re always going to be in fear of a regulatory body coming back and saying: ‘That’s not what you’re supposed to be doing with your water, you’re supposed to be doing this.’”

Archibald says permitting challenges are amplified in areas where material reserves are dwindling.

“There are some states where there just aren’t new permits being issued,” he says. “Or, as is needed with dredging – specifically our style of dredges that are designed for deep-water mining – permits aren’t being approved for the producers to go deeper. That’s a really scary one.”

Crowe

Crowe

Pressing problems

Amid a successful start to the year, supply chain and materials pricing issues persist.

For Rohr-Idreco, however, a shift toward domestically made dredges has helped to alleviate some supply problems. When Rohr-Idreco re-entered the dredging market, Crowe says it was heavily reliant on its operations in Europe for parts and service.

Recently, though, the company’s domestic push is starting to pay off when it comes to equipment and service.

“We have been able to find some U.S. sources for some of the European parts and that has helped a bit,” Crowe says. “Our U.S. supply chain is building out rather nicely. The last four dredges we’ve quoted were 100 percent U.S. built. We’re still relying on good, old-fashioned German and Dutch engineering, but it’s all U.S. fabrication.”

Crowe says Rohr-Idreco maintains a global focus.

“It’s been a balancing act to make sure what we use here translates to what gets used in other parts of the world, so I’m not building a one-off machine for the U.S. that is unique to the rest of the world,” he says. “I have to be somewhat mindful of that fact, so I can’t completely abandon what we’ve been doing for the last 40 years that has worked so well. That makes it a bit more complicated. I can’t just swap parts.”

DSC Vision gives operators a 160-degree view of where and how deep a dredge is going. Photo: DSC Dredge

DSC Vision gives operators a 160-degree view of where and how deep a dredge is going. Photo: DSC Dredge

In Archibald’s case, it isn’t supply of products that is hurting Supreme Manufacturing. Lead times on many pieces of equipment are often shorter than the 12 to 18 months needed to build a dredge from start to finish, he says.

Instead, it’s equipment price increases that are causing the most problems. Price bumps must be passed along to customers in some form, Archibald says, and managing their expectations through those is now part of his job.

“Right now, and for the last year almost, when I give a customer a quote for something I’ll honor the quote for five days,” Archibald says. “It used to be we would honor it for a couple of months. They’d come back and say: ‘Can you please update your quote on this?’ And, historically, it may have been a 4 or 5 percent price increase from the previous quote, even [if that] was a year prior.”

Now, Archibald says some projects, in just a six-month span, have seen 100 percent cost increases over previous quotes. These drastic increases have cost Supreme some projects over the last year, as companies are forced to rebudget for projects that had previously been accounted for and approved.

“If I gave a customer a quote for something two years ago, and it was $8 million, if I went to recode it nine months ago, it may have been $10 million,” he says. “That will take your breath away. The customer may have said: ‘OK, we went back through budgeting, we’re good to go.’

“[Then], it may have been six months ago, I’ll say: ‘I hate to say it, but I’ve got to re-quote this again,” Archibald adds. “… And it’s going to really suck when I give you this new number.’”

Looking ahead, he says incorporating surcharges into projects is a matter of “when” and not “if” for manufacturers to account for and defray price increases.

“It’s going to be an inevitability,” Archibald says. “Do we want to hedge and say we’re going to make the project have a 2 percent higher sticker price right now than what it actually is to account for that? Or, do we want to have a 5 to 10 percent not-to-exceed surcharge built into it to account for price increases 12 months from now?”

Despite headwinds like these, Archibald says optimism continues to permeate the industry.

“If somebody is not positive about something, they are an outlier,” Archibald says. “There is more reason for optimism than there is for pessimism.”

Jack Kopanski

About the Author:

Jack Kopanski is the Managing Editor of Pit & Quarry and Editor-in-Chief of Portable Plants. Kopanski can be reached at 216-706-3756 or jkopanski@northcoastmedia.net.

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