For three years, The Hansa-Meyer team in Thailand has been working – hand in hand with their HQ in Germany and their other global offices on a very challenging hydropower project located in Laos, Thailand. As the project comes to a close, here’s a progress update.
With the project coming to an end, the main heavy lift/over-dimensional items have arrived at Laem Chabang port. The trucks waiting alongside in order to receive the more than 3,000 FRT directly from the vessel. “The allocation of more than 50 flatbed trucks made this operation quite challenging considering our goal to keep storage charges for our client to an absolute minimum.”
The team of Hansa Meyer China recently took care of the local coordination and supervision of a charter-shipment involving a 235t Transformer from China. Everything was loaded safely via trucks/inland barge and arrived just in time at the port before heading to Thailand in order to be forwarded to Laos P.D.R. later on.
Limitations in terms of border closures and delivery capacities at the jobsite, traditional road closures during the holiday season and unforeseen restrictions concerning inter-provincial travel due to the ongoing pandemic, had a big impact on the project execution.
One part of this time-consuming procedure was the weighing of hydraulic axle lines with assigned staff from the Department of Highways. Also, several minor civil works and bridge reinforcements/strengthening’s as part of the DOH requirements had to be executed in order to ensure safe transport along the route considering the massive trailer-configuration. The heaviest pieces weighing up to 236 tonnes required 48 axle lines in total.
“However, due to thorough planning prior to arrival, close coordination with (and outstanding support of) various authorities we were able to develop and implement a feasible and safe operations plan in compliance with all restrictions. All the flatbed trucks made it to the jobsite in Laos 100% on time, while we in parallel kept finalizing the preparations for the upcoming transports of the heavy and over-dimensional items which will follow soon.”