Diesel reactor, ConocoPhillips Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel Project

Bigge Crane and Rigging Co. transported and set into place a 317t reactor for a ConocoPhillips refinery in Rodeo, California earlier this year.

The reactor was the heaviest of the columns received by Bigge from the heavy lift ship S/V Happy River in February 2004 and subsequently transported by road transported to the refinery. The company used a custom 20-dolly vehicle to reach the refinery. Once there, Bigge reloaded the column on to a self-propelled Goldhofer platform trailer.

A 450t Bigge Manitowoc 2250 crawler crane in Max-er configuration lifted the column. The company’s new 500t Terex-Demag AC 500 – equipped with 185t of counterweight – lifted the tail end.

‘The AC 500, with its high capacity and manoeuvrability for limited access situations, was the perfect solution for setting the pipe and equipment modules seen in the background,’ the company says.

Habas nitrogen towers

Turkish transport firm öznakliyat uses its new 700t capacity Terex-Demag AC 700s to lift 90t nitrogen towers manufactured by Linde. The towers were in 4m square column sections measuring 39m, 36m and 13m long. They were installed at the processing facility of Habas in the midwestern city of Bilecik.

Mainly, the 50-year old Istanbul-based company hauls ISO shipping containers from inland terminals across Europe and the Middle East and also stores, maintains and services containers.

Last year, it branched into heavy lifting. ‘Some of our customers don’t have any opportunities to have a crane,’ says crane services manager Ayberk Yüksel. ‘We have customers who do not want to request a crane from another company. Our long-term strategy is to integrate our project management and heavy transport and our crane services.’

The company decided buy some of the biggest cranes around in order to gain access to the biggest jobs. ‘Construction customers like power plants and industrial projects have increasingly heavy components. The design of these components in weight and size is limited by available handling capacity.’ Yüksel estimates there are no more than 20 cranes over 500t capacity in Turkey, and a total of 250 to 300 cranes with 100t lifting capacity in the country.

The company also has 50 axles of hydraulically-raised platforms, with a maximum load of 20t/axle, and eight axles of hydraulic telescoping Inter Combi trailers, plus low-bed trailers and a fleet of prime movers.

Kårstø expansion
Transrig, the Norwegian subsidiary of Belgian crane rental company Sarens, lifted 25 units into place during an expansion programme of the Kårstø gas plant.

The job, subcontracted from Aker Kvaerner, included transport from the yard and final erection of 10 vessels, nine modules, five piperacks and a compressor.

The C02 stripper weighed 340t and measured 66m long, and the aftercooler pre-assembly module weighed 440t.

Set-up space for the cranes was limited, and the crane had to be de-rigged and erected in several different positions because of limited space. The jobs were carried out while the gas plant was operating at full capacity, which required extra safety precautions. Many of the vessels and modules were lifted over and close to process equipment under full pressure.

The primary crane, a Demag CC 8800, installed vessels and modules at a radius of 48m. It had 500 tonnes of Superlift ballast.

Slovnaft vessel
Czech Republic construction contractor Hutni Motaze lifted a 135t vessel in Bratislava, Slovakia in May. The Demag CC 2400 lifted the vessel with the help of an AC 535 and AC 395. Customer was the chemical company Slovnaft.