January 26 - Volga-Dnepr Group has seen its AN-124, IL-76TD-90VD and Boeing 747 freighters combine to deliver machinery and materials for the Corumba III hydroelectric power plant in Brazil.

The project commenced with AN-124 and Boeing 747 cargo charter flights from Ulyanovsk and Kazan in Russia to Brasilia, with the possibility of executing further flights for the same project utilising Volga-Dnepr's new IL-76TD-90VD freighters. 

The flights were booked with Volga-Dnepr and AirBridge Cargo by Charter Service Niklas in Germany on behalf of its customer, the German freight forwarder Conceptum Logistics GmbH. The largest single piece of cargo transported was rotor rim weighing in at a 29 tonnes. 

Dennis Gliznoutsa, Group Commercial Director (Charters) for Volga-Dnepr, said: "This is a perfect example of how we can use our cargo fleet of Russian and western-built freighters to provide optimum logistics solutions for project movements. As well as demonstrating the capability of our aircraft, this series of flights has also called upon the technical expertise of our load planners. For the second phase of flights with the AN-124 they have designed a new frame for the 29 tonne piece that will simplify the loading process enabling them to use the aircraft's internal crane." 

Brazil is the largest energy producer in Latin America. The Corumba III plant is being built on the river Corumba, near Luziania in Goias state in central Brazil and will have an installed capacity of 93.6MW. 

Anyone involved in the South and Central America markets should take a look at the feature that will be published in the March/April edition of HLPFI. If you would like to speak to one of the researchers working on the feature let us know.