March 15 - Sarens has been awarded a heavy lift contract from engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) company KBR to support construction and expansion activities at an oil refinery in Corpus Christi, USA.
Sarens will mobilise two 1,600-tonne capacity Terex CC8800-1 crawler cranes to lift and install 48 oversize modules and two towers. The heaviest lift will involve a 583-tonne depentaniser (a fractionating column to remove pentane from hydrocarbons) at the refinery site.
"The projects pose several unique challenges, including the need for two 1,600-tonne capacity cranes on-site at the same time. Few lifting companies can provide this level of service, but Sarens has the largest fleet of Terex CC8800-1 cranes, so we are able to accommodate KBR's needs," claimed Sven Janssens, operations manager at Sarens USA.
Sean Pointer, project estimator at Sarens USA, added: "The main challenge for this contract is that the site will be active at the time of our heavy lift and rigging operations. The crane must also be set back from the installation site to clear major plant equipment, so the combination of distance and reactor weight made the CC8800-1 the right crane for the job."
The contract will begin this month with the lifting and installation of two hydrocracker reactors, the largest of which weighs 359.7 tonnes. These hoists will require the Terex CC8800-1 crawler to be configured with an 84 m main boom and super lift tray containing 640 tonnes of counterweight.
A second CC8800-1 will be mobilised with 96 m of main boom and 640 tonnes of counterweight to support the heavy lifts.
