deugro Japan, in collaboration with the local teams of deugro USA, delivered a wide range of oversized and heavy lift (OSHL) components from more than 20 global seaports and airports to a downstream oil and gas project in Texas.
The OSHL units were picked up in 14 different countries and shipped to Port Arthur in Texas, USA, for on-carriage to the project site by barge and truck. Cargo pick-up as well as vessel loading, stowing and load securing operations at the various loading ports were coordinated by deugro Tokyo. Altogether, 10 heavy lift vessels were fully or partly chartered for the ocean voyages in collaboration with deugro’s chartering department.
“One of the full-charter vessels, which was booked for a shipment from Korea nearly one year prior to the shipment, missed the agreed laycan due to the effects of the Red Sea crisis. However, thanks to our strategic partnerships with the carriers, we were able to find and charter another heavy lift vessel with the required capacity one month prior to laycan. This enabled us to prevent significant project delays and extra costs for the client and the project owner,” said Haruka Somura, general manager at deugro Japan.
After arrival at Port Arthur, the majority of the components were directly transloaded onto various deck barges. The most challenging cargo units transported were a 540-tonne C2 splitter measuring 68.6 m x 9.76 m x 9.97 m, and a 375-tonne caustic tower measuring 54 m in length. To safely and efficiently accommodate the respective sizes, weights and individual characteristics of the components, various-sized barges were arranged for by deugro Houston.
“Due to the extreme barge shortage in the market, combined with several vessels arriving at the same time at the discharge port, deugro developed a plan to reuse and efficiently turn around some of the hired barge assets. This was particularly challenging and had to be meticulously designed since any delays caused, for instance, by weather or congestion could have potentially delayed the vessel operations with significant additional costs as a consequence,” said Gert Jensen, senior vice president, operations, at deugro USA.
Transporting the large units over a 17.5-nautical-mile inland voyage to the marine offloading facility (MOF) near the construction site required sophisticated transport engineering measures. On deugro’s behalf, these were designed by the marine engineering experts from dteq Transport Engineering Solutions (dteq). “Given the nature of the design of various cargo items, we had to analyse the structural integrity of the barge and locate all load spreading accordingly. We then executed this design in the field and prepared the barges to make them ready to receive all the cargo from the heavy lift vessel,” explained Franklin Alvarez, regional director transport engineering Americas at dteq.
He added: “Having multiple vessels operating at the same time, while working as efficiently as possible with the equipment on hand, posed a challenge. Detailed planning for the sequencing of the main heavy lift items was crucial, as we had a limited number of barges available to us and had to efficiently reuse them. We had to time the lift operations of each item with the completion of the roll-off operations and return the specific barge on time for loading additional items.”
On arrival at the MOF, the individual cargo units were picked up by various SPMT configurations and rolled off the barges via a newly constructed dock. After altogether 17 barge voyages, all international and domestic cargo was successfully delivered.
“The overall project scope, with its considerable number of challenging OSHL cargo components, interfaces, vessel and barge voyages, overland trips and transloading operations, in conjunction with the strict delivery sequences of the construction site, required meticulous preparation, proactive coordination and closest communication between all parties involved. All this as well as the full support of the client, project owner and all subcontractors were the keys to successful project delivery,” said Jensen.
In total, some 85,000 cu m of equipment was delivered to the petrochemical project, including nearly 530 teu and over 50 tonnes of airfreight.
