February 25 - SAL Heavy Lift's vessel Lone has completed the second shipment of cargo from Mai Lao, China, to Point Comfort in Texas, USA for a plastic plant expansion project.
The second shipment, out of a total of three deliveries comprising 60,947 freight tonnes, involved the largest single units, with nine piece of out-of-gauge plant equipment carried on the deck of Lone. The biggest unit - a fractionator - measured 93 m long and weighed 840 tonnes.
Shipping such large items required careful planning, skilful engineering and a well-organised and experienced crew, explained SAL.
"Although SAL has great experience in shipping such cargo and of this size, it always comes with challenges that require careful planning and risk mitigations," said Justin Archard, corporate director, commercial at SAL.
"Manoeuvring the cargo requires great attention to hydrodynamic stability and loss of load calculations, to mention just two out of several critical factors,"
The shipment also received attention from a television production company working on a new Discovery Channel series. A film crew attended the SAL vessel in Texas to follow the unloading operations, which involved lifting the huge cargoes from Lone onto self-propelled modular transporters (SPMT) at Point Comfort.
"The 93 m item had to be discharged on starboard side due to its severe length - I believe it is a good example of the capabilities of our Type 183 vessel," added Archard.
The items will form part of the Formosa Plastic factory expansion project, which is being developed over the course of 2016 in Point Comfort, Texas.
HLPFI reported in January 2016 that Pacific Ocean Group Ltd (POGL) was providing logistics services for the delivery of oversize cargo to the same manufacturing facility, with an 801-tonne item just one of the units shipped from Taiwan to USA.
