October 10 - ALE has successfully completed a turnkey project on behalf of Valero, transporting eight waste heat boiler components almost 8,047 km from Texas to a refinery project in Pembroke, UK.
The largest unit transported tipped the scales at 167 tonnes. All of the pieces were transported from the vendor's facility in Abilene, Texas to the Port of Houston, before being shipped in one voyage to Pembroke Dock and placed on modular trailers.
A dedicated heavy-lift barge then transferred the boiler components to the refinery jetty in two voyages using a combination of self-propelled modular trailers (SPMT), self-propelled trailers (SPT) and conventional trailers.
The tidal restrictions at the jetty provided windows of less than one hour for arrival, discharge and departure of each barge. The operations were successfully completed within a four-day period.
At the refinery each component was delivered in sequence under the hook for erection onto their foundations and final installation. The ALE team had to complete a detailed route survey and select appropriate equipment to deliver the consignment from the jetty to the construction site, in order to negotiate various height restrictions.
Tom Irvine, senior project manager at ALE, explained: "By offering the client a single-source solution, we were able to utilise a wealth of experience from our teams within the UK and Houston branches to plan, manage, coordinate and select the optimum solutions at each phase of the project."
