Demolition of Submarine Foxtrot commences
On January 9, 2020, the Russian Foxtrot submarine was successfully placed on the dismantling site of Jansen Recycling Group in Vlaardingen to be demolished. The deteriorating Foxtrot had been moored in the Amsterdam IJ since 2002 and was removed under coercion.
The 90-meter long Foxtrot B-80 was built in Latvia in 1956 and was part of the fleet of the Soviet Union. In 1991, it was brought to the Netherlands by entrepreneurs, but today, the ownership of the ship remains unclear. For the city of Amsterdam, the rusting submarine has been an eyesore for years.
The city of Amsterdam issued a European tender, which was won by Struijk Demolition and Earthworks, who, in collaboration with Jansen Recycling Group and several other specialists, will undertake this task.
In its current condition, the submarine weighs approximately 1,500 tons. Upon arrival, asbestos will be removed, and the scrap will be prepared to be sent to the specialized iron smelting company Purified Metal Company (PMC) in Delfzijl. This new factory, operational by mid-2020, converts contaminated steel scrap into a secondary raw material suitable for the steel industry.
At the dismantling site of Jansen Recycling Group in Vlaardingen, several major demolition projects have been carried out in recent years, including the car transport ship Baltic Ace (2015), the steel island of the Scheveningen Pier (2016), and the old Botlek Bridge (2018).