MV Lone Performs SAL’s Heaviest Lift Ever
On its maiden voyage, the company’s latest new building MV Lone performed SAL’s heaviest lift ever. With its lifting capacity of 2 x 1,000 t SWL the vessel loaded 8 reactors weighing up to 1,719 t and measuring 45 x 8 x 8 m. As part of the RPLC Deep Conversion Project Phase II in Venezuela these massive reactors were manufactured in Japan. The massive reactors are destined for the PDVSA Puerto La Cruz refinery in Venezuela and facilitate the conversion of heavy and extra heavy crude oil.
The massive reactors facilitate the conversion of heavy and extra heavy crude oil. into high quality refined fuel products. The project was awarded to SAL by the Dutch heavy lift specialist Mammoet Logistics BV. On its voyage, the MV Lone first called the Japanese port of Higashi Harima where two hydrocracking reactors were loaded and continued on to Muroran to take six further hydrotreating reactors on board.
From Muroran the vessel sailed through the Panama Canal directly on to the port of Chaguaramas in Trinidad where the reactors are temporarily stored before being carried to their final destination of Puerto La Cruz in Venezuela. After careful preparation, the reactors were discharged in record time: the heaviest reactor of 1,719 t was set ashore in only 2.5 hours. The speed and performance of the loading and discharging operation resulted from a successful interplay between extensive preplanning by the joint team of SAL and Mammoet, the highly skilled and experienced crew, and the state-of-the-art lifting equipment on board. The human expertise of the SAL crew was accompanied by the necessary infrastructure on board the MV Lone: a lifting arrangement of 40 t and shackles weighing about 4ts – equaling the weight of two passenger cars. With this job, the vessel almost fully exploited its unrivalled lifting capacity only weeks after being introduced into the
market. From Trinidad, the reactors will eventually be brought to Venezuela by barge.