Barrus Projects have completed the second stage transportation of oversized cargo including high-pressure steam generation units for the new Maleic Anhydride (MAN) plant in Tobolsk on behalf of SIBUR.
The project included a full range of works for the oversized and heavy cargo transportation from the Korean seaports of Kunsan and Ulsan to Tobolsk, Russia.
“The shipment was carried out in September, which complicated the process greatly because in the East China and Yellow seas region autumn is a typhoon season. The chartered ship could not reach the ports for a week due to weather conditions.”
After dispatch, the vessel continued transportation along the Northern Sea Route to the port of Sabetta, where the cargo was loaded on a barge for further transportation along the Ob and Irtysh rivers to the berth of the Tobolsk industrial port.
“The most difficult and dangerous operation took place on the port of Sabetta roadstead. It was necessary to reload the ODC from the sea vessel to the barge in the open bay of the Kara Sea in bad weather conditions in late autumn.“
The MAN production plant has a capacity of 45 thousand tonnes per year at the site of SIBUR in Tobolsk.
Last year, the main element of the MAN plant, the synthesis unit, was loaded onto a barge in Deggendorf, Germany, after which the barge with cargo proceeded to the port of Antwerp, Belgium for temporary storage. Closer to the opening of navigation on the Northern Sea Route, a sea crane vessel approached the port of Antwerp, where the entire volume of cargo was loaded on board.
The cargo proceeded from the port of Antwerp through the NSR to the seaport of Sabetta, where it was reloaded onto a barge for further transportation along inland waterways – the Ob and Irtysh rivers to the pier of the industrial port of Tobolsk.