HLPFI reviews the entries that made it onto this year’s Excellence in Engineering award shortlist, sponsored by DHL Industrial Projects.
For this award, our judges were looking for the transport engineering team that, during the last 12 months, has demonstrated its ability to overcome unusual transport and installation challenges, using customised engineering solutions and deploying innovative engineering methods to maximise the potential of equipment.
Our shortlist for the Excellence in Engineering award includes:
CJ ICM Logistics
CJ ICM Logistics’ entry focused on its work on a major project in Iraq, where South Refineries Company is constructing a new plant to enhance processing capacity of the Basrah Refinery. CJ’s transport engineering team managed the port handling, storage, transportation and on-site lifting of over 268 out-of-gauge units of cargo for the project, which required large-scale surveys and civil works across the 100 km transport route.
Denzai
Denzai’s innovative application of SPMTs and Enerpac jack-up systems assisted with the removal and transportation of two huge bridges for the Narita Airport expansion project in Japan. Denzai employed advanced engineering techniques and thorough planning to enhance its handling capabilities, ensure the units’ structural integrity and achieve time and cost efficiencies.
Drewes Logistics
Drewes Logistics’ submission highlighted its transport of two huge LNG storage tanks – weighing 519 tonnes each – from Gijon, Spain to Sturgeon Bay, USA. Clever engineering allowed both tanks to be shipped on one heavy lift vessel, while the unloading of the tanks from the vessel to the hull involved complex challenges. Drewes said that these two units were the largest single cargoes that have been moved so far via the St Lawrence Seaway system into the Great Lakes.
Fagioli
In a unique project, Fagioli’s entry this year focused on the transport and installation of an empty pipe, weighing only 7 tonnes. The pipe, which was 50 m long with a diameter of less than 1 m, was destined for installation 8 m below the water level and had to be transported along a canal in Venice. Fagioli’s innovative transport solution involved a bespoke catamaran, which measured 12 m long and 5 m wide, equipped with two strand jacks.
Fracht Group
After an 18-month long planning process, Fracht Brazil completed the complex installation of a 400-tonne mill stand as part of an ambitious steel plant expansion project. The project had a very tight schedule and Fracht established a fast-track method to install the unit, which involved thousands of hours of careful planning, detailed 3D modelling and close collaboration with all parties involved.
Freight Wings
Freight Wings transported and installed a 2,500-tonne arch at open sea using a float-over installation method in India. The pioneering project utilised various innovative engineering solutions, including quick-lowering tidal jacks, rapid ballast systems and strand jacks for sea-fastening, in order to overcome the challenging weather and conditions on site.
Prism Logistics
Prism Logistics’ entry focused on its work transporting 34 over-dimensional units, weighing a total of 13,000 tonnes, for a huge refinery project in India. Among some of the engineering solutions that were employed, Prism constructed a bespoke modular bridge for the project and created over 60 heavy-duty bypasses to facilitate the delivery of the consignment over thousands of kilometres to the project site.
Sarens
In a complex project, Sarens’ giant crane, Little Celeste, replaced two enormous century-old rail bridge sections in Massy, France. The twol bridges weighing 468 tonnes each – the Pont de Chartres for RER line B and Pont de Gallardon for RER line C – had to be dismantled, before the new Chartres bridge – measuring 86 m long and weighing in at 1,375 tonnes – and Gallardon – measuring over 57 m long and weighing 950 tonnes – were installed.
Vanguard
Vanguard’s submission detailed a complex lifting operation to upright a barque rigged sailing vessel, Europa, at Victoria and Alfred Waterfront Yard in Cape Town, South Africa. The vessel, which weighed in at 650 tonnes, had slipped from its keel supports while undergoing maintenance and rolled onto its starboard side. Vanguard used a combination of four hydraulic gantry systems and four 186-tonne capacity strand jacks to lift and re-align the vessel with the centre line of the track system.
The winner of this year’s Excellence in Engineering award will be announced at the Heavy Lift Awards 2024 ceremony on October 23 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London. To join the celebrations, book your space today.
