VIP Shipper Club library – Navigating the Amazon

ISSUE 1 / 2017

ISSUE 1 / 2017

NAVIGATING THE AMAZON

Preparation Pays Off for South American Journey

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WÄRTSILÄ ...................................................................................................... page 61

case study

60 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

ISSUE 1 / 2017

NAVIGATING

THE AMAZON Preparation Pays Off for South American Journey

BY LARA SHINGLES

M

oving high-value project cargo is difficult enough.

But moving a brace of generating sets from icy Finland to the world’s largest rainforest via the steamy Amazon river basin is another thing entirely, having to contend with changing water levels, poor bridge infrastructure and extremes of weather conditions.

Back in 2012, UTC Overseas took three months to undertake the mammoth task of delivering seven 130-tonne Wärtsilä generating sets from Finland to remote oil fields in the Amazon. The generating sets plus some of their accessories, including seven 40-foot containers and eight radiators in wooden boxes, were transported first by sea from Finland to Manaus, Brazil, and then by waterway, having offloaded the generating sets and their accessories onto four barges operated by Transglobal Servicos midstream. Two generating sets were loaded onto each barge and the seventh was alone on another.

Five of the gensets were 16-cyclinder models, each just short of 11,000 horsepower, and the remaining two were 18-cyclinder models, both of which put out slightly more than 12,000 horsepower.

“These are all very powerful, heavy industrial engines,” said John Hatley, Wärtsilä North America’s vice president of marine solutions. “Each engine with

John Hatley

Alain Holtappels

Wärtsilä

UTC Overseas

its generator weighs in the vicinity of 130 tonnes so it was not a small package.”

Even so, Alain Holtappels, regional manager of West Coast of South America at UTC Overseas, said the offloading operation was “perfect, well timed and well executed.”

Once loaded, the barges were pushed along the waterways by two tugboats to Eden and Itaya Port, and then transferred to low-bed axle trucks to travel to their final blocks for use by the end customer, Ecuadoran state oil company Petroamazonas.

CONTINGENCY PLANNING

Under such an operation, Holtappels said: “You cannot invent on the spot. You have to be very sure of what you are going to do, and every step you are going to perform must be analyzed at least three times.”

He described navigating the Amazon as “pretty complicated. There is much debris and strong currents, and going upstream is not an easy job to achieve.”

UTC carried out six months of “exhaustive preparation” before beginning the transportation, and, at different stages of the operation, had as many as 20 staff involved.

“In the middle of the jungle, it’s easy to understand that you will need an excavator,” Holtappels added. “This is not something you will find around the corner, so we needed to ensure that every element was in place just in case.

It was [also] important to evaluate all the possible negative circumstances we could be faced with in order to avoid any typical last-minute surprises. You have to be prepared to have the solution on hand then and there.”

UTC also undertook various route surveys as part of its planning process.

It verified and analyzed river port facilities and landing earthen ramps, checked access to roadways and site facilities for disembarking and offloading the generators on to pads, and evaluated the stability of the bridges necessary on the route.

Nicolas Chavez, president of Grupo Atlas, the project’s chosen trucking company, noted that the teams also had to deal with changing water levels, border crossings and safety considerations.

“There was engineering involved to build a ramp and cage in order to stabilize the cargo when it was being rolled

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: 1. The seven 130-tonne Wärtsilä generating sets and their accessories are loaded onto four barges operated by

Transglobal Servicos midstream. 2. The units were transferred from barge to low-bed axle trucks to travel to their final destination. 3. The gensets ranged from 16-cylinder, 11,000 horsepower to 18-cylinder, 12,000 horsepower. 4. Challenges on the Amazon ranged from flooding to near-drought conditions that at times stranded the barges. 5. The cargo traversed a dozen bridges, many not designed for the weight of the cargo. 6. At one location, the team added an overbridge to support the weight of the gensets. / Credit: Wärtsilä, UTC Overseas; Amazon River photo via Shutterstock www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 61

trade notes

FINDING THE RIGHT BALANCE With each generating set in the Wärtsilä project weighing around 130 tonnes, they had to be stowed as low as possible on the surface of the barges to maintain stability on the waterways. To that end, the team aimed for a center of gravity of just 45 centimeters.

UTC Overseas’ Alain Holtappels said that it had to verify this level with specialists, and even employed specialists during the voyage to ensure that the balance of the barges was maintained.

“We were spreading the weight and we were reaching the level of the center of gravity we had to have to make a safe journey,” Holtappels said. “These pieces of cargo had an extremely high value and we were always sensitive to this; you can’t play with this kind of cargo.”

He continued: “Spreading the weight over the surface was important, and the securing and lashing is of the upmost importance when you have such a long journey ahead of you.”

Normally, Holtappels explained that forwarders might use “elephant legs” for this kind of project.

However, these would have been too high for this particular move.

Instead, the team used wooden beams to ensure that they had the correct balance for the cargoes’ journey on the waterways.

off the barges. However, after our engineers gave us the blueprints, we still had to take them to the final client to inspect and agree to because we were unloading this on their site, where they are responsible for safety and security.”

Holtappels described the scope of the project as enormous: “We had three blocks and three destinations into the jungle to surf with these seven units.”

ACROSS BORDERS

The project’s team traversed through four countries on its journey from Finland to Ecuador following the river flow, which passes through Peru. In total, the journey spanned more than 12,400 kilometers.

On the face of it, it appeared easier to perform the moves directly from the west coast of South America. But the experienced team knew there would be impassable obstacles along that route, such as the Andes mountain range.

“The only option with this kind of piece was to do it via the waterways through Manaus,” said Holtappels.

Still, the chosen route wasn’t without its own obstacles. Once the team was on its way, it had to contend with different, yet just as difficult challenges on the waterways. These included flooding conditions in the Amazon, which left large pieces of debris in the water and created navigation hazards, and near-drought conditions that, at times, stranded the barges on sandbars.

“There were situations where sometimes we had to wait one or two days to move along because of the sandbanks,” said Holtappels.

“Water level is, of course, of upmost importance when you travel on rivers like this – and certainly on such a long journey – so logically that was measured all the way. But there were times when we were stuck and had to wait for typical tropical rains to raise the water level and carry on with our journey.”

Credit: Wärtsilä, UTC Overseas

LEVELING OUT

When the barges arrived at the ports, the generating sets were transferred from the barges to low-bed, 10- to 12-axle trucks for transport to the final destinations, which Holtappels said was “a very difficult task.”

The team had to fill in gaps by putting gravel down, among other things, and still faced the issue of varying water 62 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com

levels. Once the barges had arrived at both ports, the team had to raise them to the right height in order to slide the trucks in. At the same time, it had to level out both the river and the ramp to get the generating sets on to dry land.

By the time the team had leveled everything, it had just a few hours to get the generating sets out of the barges before the water level changed again.

Chavez said: “We had to keep checking the conditions because if there was a river flood overnight, we could have lost the ramp that we had built, and that’s why we always had excavators and machines ready for Plan B.” “In one hour the whole situation could change, so this operation required a lot of patience,” added Holtappels. “Sometimes we had to wait there for hours before we were able to have the correct level for the rolling off operation.”

The work didn’t finish when the generating sets had been successfully transferred to the trucks. The cargo then had to be transported to the final three destinations, unloaded and then slid on to their blocks.

Altogether, the trucks had to cross 12 bridges en route to their final destinations, many of which are not designed for this weight of cargo. Chavez said: “The state of some of the bridges that we had to pass were not reliable. Mostly, they were welded inside the blocks.”

As a result, the team had to repair, refurbish and reinforce most of the bridges to the final destinations, something it had to request permits for almost two months in advance of the project.

At one location, the team added an overbridge to support the weight of the gensets, and at another it built a bailey bridge on top of another.

To complete the transportation, the team unloaded the generating sets into their respective buildings without any incidents using a sliding system.

“Wärtsilä trusted us with this job and I think they were satisfied with the result,” Holtappels said. “We arrived at the final destinations with zero delays and everybody was happy.” BB Lara Shingles is a UK-based freelance journalist specializing in maritime projects and services.

ISSUE 1 / 2017

BROADEN YOUR HORIZON FOR SUCCESS.

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