A giant autoclave, one of the largest in the gold mining industry, has been successfully transported from Antwerp, Belgium to Amursk, Russia.
The equipment is intended for the second autoclave line of the Amursk Hydrometallurgical Plant by JSC Polymetal.
The first stage of transportation was the delivery of the equipment from the COEK Engineering manufacturing plant in Geel to the port of Antwerp in mid-May 2020. The equipment was delivered on a hold barge to the port where SAL’s heavy lift vessel mv Svenja was already waiting.
Further, the sea transportation of the autoclave was carried out from the port of Antwerp through the Suez Canal to the seaport of De-Kastri in 30 days.
The second stage of the autoclave transportation was from the port of De-Kastri to Amursk. The general contractor, Key Point Logistics with Barrus Projects, selected a special barge for the transportation of this super-heavy and oversized cargo. According to Barrus Projects, in the Far East region, commercial organisations do not have barges suitable for such size cargo.
The team reloaded the autoclave with the ship’s cranes onto a specially equipped Ro-Ro barge and secured the cargo on the barge. Then the cargo was transported from De-Kastri along the Tatar Strait and Amur to a specially designed and built Ro-Ro berth in Amursk. The berth was constructed to carry out cargo operations at different water levels on the Amur.