Project freight forwarder deugro, in collobaration with dteq Transport Engineering Solutions, has transported critical out-of-gauge (OOG) components from China to a pulp fabrication facility in Uruguay.
The cargo included a unit which measured 34.66 m x 9.35 m x 9.13 m and weighed 140 tons (127 tonnes), a 150-ton (136.1-tonne) unit measuring 18.84 m x 9.25 m x 9.14 m, as well as a 10.91 m x 10.35 m x 10.17 m unit that weighed 56 tons (50.8 tonnes). All components were shipped by heavy lift vessel from the port of Taicang in China to the Punta Pereira private terminal in Uruguay.
Planning was key to the operation, particulaly for oncarriage from the port to the laydown area. Although just a 2 km-long journey, deugro encountered tight turns, buildings extremely close to the road and street furniture along the route. dteq engineers were commissioned to conduct a road survey prior to the move.
“dteq worked very closely with deugro Uruguay to gather all the information needed to develop transport solutions and swept path analyses needed in order to ensure a safe transport to the final place of rest on site,” said Irene Gonzalez, transport engineer at dteq. “Ultimately, all transports went smoothly and were moved with a minimum clearance of 100 mm.”
Commenting on the project, Nicolas Gomez, country manager, deugro Uruguay said: “This allowed the oversized cargo units to be transported at their maximum dimensions, significantly reducing subsequent assembly costs, while avoiding having to choose between modifying or downsizing the cargo units and removing buildings along the transport corridor – resulting in further substantial cost savings.”
In accordance with the required safety and industry standards, side-by-side axle lines were required to transport the longest unit – which measured 34.66 m long. Due to limited availability within Uruguay and the costly process of mobilising axle lines from abroad, deugro substituted the original truck with an SPMT, allowing the components to be loaded onto shorter equipment.
Last month, deugro signed a port handling agreement for wind turbine components at Germany’s port of Brake.
