VTG, the German rail logistics company, has handled the shipment of around 35,000 tons (31,751 tonnes) of cargo, from Asia, Europe, and the USA, to Tobolsk, Siberia.
The components are part of a new single-train polypropylene plastic manufacturing facility for which Thyssen Krupp won a front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract in 2012.
The largest components were eight 53 ton (48.1 tonne) 56 m x 3.3 m loop reactor legs.
VTG organised the transport of these components from the port of Ravenna in Italy, on board an ocean and river-going vessel to the Russian port of Tolyatti, on the Volga river. From here, the components were moved 2,500 km on semi-trailers to Tobolsk.
An 80-ton (72.6-tonne) gas phase reactor was transported in the same way as the loop reactor legs.
The plant's central component, a 20 m x 6 m x 6 m high pressure vessel weighing 175 tons (158.8 tonnes), was moved 550 km on board a truck from Yekaterinburg to Tobolsk.
The plant is being built for ZapSibNeftechim, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sibur, the biggest Russian gas processing and petrochemicals group, and will have a design capacity of 500,000 tonnes per annum.
The Tobolsk plant will produce a wide range of polypropylene brands for use, for example, in textile and packaging applications as well as in the production of automotive body parts and consumer goods.
