GPLN Vietnam member, The Freight Company Ltd. (TFC), recently was awarded the transport of pontoons and components for the enlargement of the Burrup Materials Facility in North West Australia. Under the contract TFC sourced a suitably heavy lift geared vessel to load the cargo at Vung Tau Port in Vietnam and transport the cargo to Dampier Port in Australia. A special spreader bar had to be ordered to lift the pontoons that weighed up to 168 metric tons (MT). Loading of the vessel commenced in the morning of 19th July as TFC had to wait for the high tide to launch and tow the pontoons from the fabricating yard to alongside ship. In the morning around 0930 hrs the Access Way and the 1st pontoon were finally towed alongside the vessel. As the pontoon exceeded the lifting capacity of a single crane they had to be lifted with two cranes working in tandem.
The cranes had to be set up so that the access way could go be placed at extreme edge of the deck in order to create enough space for the pontoons. However due to the length of 55 meters loading the access way proved not to be an easy job! The crane boom had to slew to its maximum and raise the boom straight up to slide one end of the access way and then the other end through the space between the two cranes. After aligning the access way to its right position the first pontoon was about to be loaded. This was really the toughest move as the distance from the hatch-cover edge to the access way had been significantly reduced which made it very hard to slew the other end of the pontoon into the remaining space as can be seen on the pictures which gives a good idea with how little room we had to play on this move. It turned out to be precision work which was necessary as any wrong move by a few centimeters could have caused damage to the specially designed and highly valued cargo.
All in all preparation, coordination, experience, timing, professionalism and team-work played important roles in performing such a precision task which led to the completion of a successful loading operation! After a couple of day’s hard work the loading was finally completed and the vessel left Vung Tau Port direction to Australia.
The cargo’s details:
Quantity / Descriptions / Dimension / Est. Weight per unit
1 Pontoon 1 47.50m x 7.80m x 2.25m 165 mt
1 Pontoon 2 47.50m x 7.80m x 2.25m 168 mt
1 Pontoon 3 35.00m x 4.80m x 2.25m 110 mt
1 Access Way 55.00m x 4.80m x 2.00m 122 mt
2 struts 45.50m x 1.60m (diameter) 25 mt
1 strut 45.50m x 1.60m (diameter) 40 mt
1 strut 45.50m x 1.60m (diameter) 50 mt
The Freight Co is a Bangkok based freight forwarding company based providing air, sea and land transport services as well as warehousing and distribution services. The Freight Co is also a market leader in turnkey project logistics serving the power, oil/gas, mining and construction industry. Further offices are in Beijing and Ho Chi Minh City. You can see more about TFC at:
Global Project Logistics Network (GPLN)
The Global Project Logistics Network is the premier non-exclusive professional projects logistics network of independent companies specializing in international projects movements by air, sea and land as well as specialized lifts and the special handling of oversized, out-of-gauge and heavy lift cargo.
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