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R300m ASU plant’s heavy components successfully transported

28th November 2014

By: Sashnee Moodley

Senior Deputy Editor Polity and Multimedia

  

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International heavy lifting and plant relocation solutions provider Vanguard successfully completed its contract to transport abnormal load equipment for South African gas company Afrox’s R300-million air-separation unit (ASU) to the Afrox site in the Coega industrial development zone (IDZ), in the Eastern Cape, last month.

Vanguard was contracted for two phases by German forwarding company Transgerma Riedl & Kiehntopf to transport equipment from the Coega port to the Afrox site over three months. Phase one included the transportation of the 100 t, 38 m cold box, with phase two entailing the transport of one oxygen tank and three nitrogen tanks.

The ASU has a production capacity of 150 t/d and will produce various industrial gases for the automotive, food processing and medical sectors in the province.

Vanguard managing engineer Roland Cumings tells Engineering News that the journey from the port to the Afrox site was about 9 km and took about two hours.

For the first phase, Vanguard discharged the cold box directly from the vessel in the Coega port onto a long, self-propelled modular trailer.

Cumings says one of the main challenges was the space constraints at the site where the unit needed to be offloaded. However, this was addressed by Vanguard’s particular trailer configuration, which allowed for the appropriate levels of manoeuvrability.

“The trailer configuration is mainly governed by the route to our destination and the mass and geometry of the load. By virtue of being self-propelled, the trailer allowed for an overhand on the front and back, so we were able to reduce the length of the trailer and tighten the turning radius,” he says.

The trailer could then negotiate road corners and access to the site without having to make any changes to infrastructure.

Further, Cumings says an important consideration was to find the optimal route for the large, heavy unit, as it was shipped in assembled form and not in smaller components. The optimal route needed to allow for the self-propelled trailer and load to reach its destination without affecting the infrastructure within the IDZ.

Before the arrival of the cold box, Vanguard was able to advise Transgerma Riedl & Kiehntopf of the advantages of using the Coega port instead of the Port Elizabeth harbour.

Positioned on staging beams on the self-propelled modular trailer, the cold box could then be staged on stands at the Afrox site while the trailer was hydraulically lowered and driven out.

The second phase of Vanguard’s contract entailed moving the oxygen tank and three nitrogen tanks, each weighing about 100 t and measuring almost 30 m.

“These were more technical moves and required long trailers and challenging constraints, such as tight clearances between the large-diameter tanks and bridges, and a portal sign under which we had to pass. At times, there was less than two inches of clearance after activating the hydraulic lowering functions on the trailer,” Cumings says.

Vanguard also handled all the smaller shipments of cargo, such as containers and smaller break bulk, as a series of shipments arrived over three months, from August to October this year.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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