January 30 - Blue Water Shipping is preparing to transport heavy oil drilling equipment from Singapore to Baku, Azerbaijan via the Russian Volga-Don river system.
The cargo, which consists of four 288-tonne lower columns, four 511-tonne upper columns and four 125-tonne bracings will first be shipped to Mariupol, Ukraine, where it will be transhipped for on oncarriage to Baku.
"We plan to transport the cargo through the Russian river system which is quite a challenging project - fortunately we have the in-house experts requires with decades of experience located in our own offices in the region to handle the project," said Jason Goh, Blue Water's regional managing director for Asia Pacific.
Thomas Bek, global manager for oil, energy and industrial projects at Blue Water, also commented on the scope of this project: "There is more to this project than chartering heavy lift vessels, river barges and tugs to move heavy equipment. We have engineers connected to the project, and we handle all river permissions which are obligatory if you want to use the river system for transport."
