Who We Are

60 years on dredging projects.
Not in an office.

Dredge Partners is built on two careers spent in the field — on the water, in the engine room, and on the contracts that made or lost money. We have managed real projects under real pressure. We know what goes wrong before it happens, and we know how to improvise when it does. We are not analysts. We are operators.

60+

Years combined experience

2

Offices — Dubai & Amsterdam

MENA

Europe · Asia · Africa

Daan Seijbel
Technical Director

Daan Seijbel

Amsterdam, Netherlands

35 years in dredging — not behind a desk, but on the water. Daan started as a superintendent at Ballast Nedam, working directly on the equipment before moving into Project Manager, Area Manager, and Business Manager roles. He has run CSD and TSHD operations across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. He knows what a production report should say and what it usually hides. When something breaks or a schedule slips, Daan has seen it before and already knows the fix.

Career

Works Manager

Ballast Nedam

Project Manager

Van Oord

Business Manager

Ballast Nedam

Area Manager UK & Ireland

Rohde Nielsen A/S

Technical Director

Dredge Partners

Key Projects

Kustwerk Katwijk

Coastal defence works, Netherlands

Afrikahaven Amsterdam

Port construction, Netherlands

IJmuiden — Noordzeekanaal

North Sea Canal deepening, Netherlands

Johor Pelepas Port

Port construction, Malaysia

Changi Airport

Land reclamation, Singapore

Barry van der Meulen
Managing Director

Barry van der Meulen

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

25 years across the maritime and dredging industry — starting as technical superintendent on the equipment itself, then moving into commercial and management roles across Van Oord, Gulf Cobla, and Jebsen & Jessen. Barry has been on vessels, in client meetings, and in the room when contracts go sideways. That field background is what makes the commercial work sharp: he knows the difference between a project that looks profitable and one that actually is.

Career

Technical Superintendent

Van Oord

Technical Manager

Gulf Cobla LLC

Area Manager MENA

Jebsen & Jessen Offshore

Managing Director

Dutch Maritime Consultancy & Brokerage

Managing Director

Dredge Partners

Key Projects

Øresund Link

Marine works, Denmark / Sweden

Palm Jumeirah

Land reclamation, Dubai, UAE

The World Islands

Land reclamation, Dubai, UAE

Why we work this way

We have seen what goes wrong.
We built Dredge Partners to fix it.

Most consultants have never been on the equipment. They work from spreadsheets, templates, and textbooks. We have worked the projects ourselves — early starts, weather delays, client pressure, equipment breakdowns, contract disputes. We know what can go wrong because we have lived it.

That field experience changes how we approach every tender and every project. We do not wait for problems to land on the desk. We see them coming. We have already improvised around the same issue on a different project in a different country, and we know what to do before it becomes a crisis.

Equipment owners consistently lose money not because their equipment is wrong — but because the back-office lets them down. Tenders are undercalculated. Contracts are signed without FIDIC protection. Variations go unclaimed.

Partners, not consultants. Skin in the game — not on the sidelines.

Our story

Dredge Partners was founded by two senior dredging professionals who had spent their careers — collectively, more than sixty years — inside the world's leading dredging contractors. We saw the same pattern repeatedly: an equipment owner outside the major contractor groups wins the right to bid a significant works contract, has a capable fleet, and has the local client relationships to make it viable — but lacks the in-house tendering system and project management depth to deliver at the standard the contract requires.

The traditional answer is to hire a consultant. The consultant bills hours, and the equipment owner ends up carrying the full technical and commercial risk while the consultant carries none. We thought there was a better structure.

Dredge Partners is built on a different model: we establish a retainer relationship with the equipment owner first — handling market monitoring, prequalification maintenance, and ongoing availability. When the right tender appears, we build the submission and manage the delivery. Our reward comes from the project succeeding, not from the hours we bill while it drifts.

How we think

Technical rigour.

Dredging projects are won and lost on details — soil conditions, equipment selection, production rates, met-ocean windows, contract clauses. A production rate calculation that doesn't hold up under scrutiny is not a calculation — it's a guess with a spreadsheet behind it.

Commercial alignment.

Our fee structure is designed so that we win when our client wins. Retainer income covers our availability; the project upside is where we earn properly. We treat alignment as a precondition for serious work, not an optional extra.

Geography

Where we work

The Gulf

UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the wider GCC. Our home base — deepest network and fastest response time in the region. Barry is based in Dubai.

The Caspian region

Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and the wider littoral states. Port infrastructure, harbour maintenance, and offshore support works.

Northwest Europe

Netherlands and the North Sea corridor. Capital works, waterway maintenance, and coastal infrastructure. Daan's home territory with decades of delivered projects.

Africa

Selected port infrastructure opportunities on the West and East African coasts. Active project experience in Nigeria and the broader West African market.

We are open to enquiries from other regions where our model is a fit.

Ready to win more work together?

Send us an email and we will come back to you quickly to discuss whether we can add value to your pipeline.

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