The business of lifting Sarens

THE BUSINESS OF LIFTING

Sarens NV is a recognised worldwide leader in heavy lifting and engineered transport. Abigail Saltmarsh looks at the company’s growth within the petrochemical, and oil and gas, industries.

Sarens NV has a long history in heavy lifting and engineered transport, and is today a major player in the market for equipment for the petrochemical, and oil and gas, industries.

Business Development Manager, Dirk Verwimp, says the company now produces a range of heavy lifting and versatile cranes suitable for diverse projects in these industries, across the world.

“We now have machinery and workshops in all the most strategically important places for the petrochemical, and oil and gas, industries from Brazil and Canada to Australia, Africa and Kazakhstan.” he says. “We are also now active in places like Ivory Coast, China and Malaysia. Where the client goes, we will follow.”

A history in lifting

Headquartered today in Wolvertem, Belgium, Sarens has been active in crane rental, heavy lifting and special projects since 1955. The group’s roots, however, go back to the 1930s when it was launched by a farmer who brought his 12 children into the business. He started out with a horse and cart but quickly began adapting to his customers’ needs, looking for suitable technical solutions.

Sarens would load, transport, build and assemble with the suitable equipment, always under competent supervision. This competence, combined with years of experience, eventually led to today’s expertise and specialisation.

Today the Sarens group as a whole has 100 entities in 50 countries, and a yearly turnover of

€430 million. It has more than 3000 employees yet remains a family business, with the fourth Sarens generation currently in management.

Safety first

Over the years, products have developed and the company has reached out into different markets. Today, it operates in the power business, civil engineering, offshore and module yards, minerals, metal and mining, as well as maintenance and petrochemicals, oil and gas.

Mr Verwimp says Sarens’s engineering, project and sales teams have a strong grasp of today’s high standards in the petrochemical, oil and gas, industries. Safety is always the utmost goal and whether it is dealing with a reactor of 1300 tonnes that is to be lifted by a crawler crane, a 1390-tonne splitter column of 125m in length, lifted by a tower system, or even the transport of a topside module of 15,000 tonnes, Sarens provides tailormade solutions for all heavy lifting and heavy transport needs.

“New lifting and transport techniques are being introduced by our engineering department in close cooperation with our clients. This allows us, as a team, to execute modu-

KAMAG

Sarens symbolizes for KAMAG the most highly respected and loyal customer. It is thanks also to Sarens that KAMAG has put, together with their specific know-how and suggestions, new ideas and developed and improved its range of modular SPMT’s. This cooperation was started in 1984 and still continues today.

Sarens owns about 1000 lines of KAMAG SPMT’s and has carried out the most outstanding and spectacular transport jobs for size and weight. Even recently Sarens invested in a highly developed new SPMT with specific highlights regarding technical and electronic matters. larisation and assembly of heavier components leading to safer projects with significant cost and time savings,” he says.

Heavy lift crane

Equipment ranges from gantry lifting systems and lattice boom cranes (up to 3200 tonnes capacity) to telescopic cranes (up to 1200 tonnes capacity) and self-propelled modular trailers, SPMTs (more than 1000 axle lines worldwide). It also includes strandjacks, skidding equipment, barges and tower cranes.

“A piece of equipment that is ideal for the very heavy lifting often required in the petrochemical, and oil and gas, industries is the Sarens Giant Crane (SGC-120),” he explains. This 3200 T capacity crane belongs to the top of the 1000 T plus class and we have 15 of these (1000 T plus class) in our fleet. They are extremely versatile.”

The SGC-120, which saw construction and testing completed in March 2011. It is the product of the combined engineering skills of Sarens and its subsidiary, Rigging International of Alameda, California.

It was the only third-generation, 120,000 Tm (3200 metric ton lifting capacity), constructed, and was designed to accommodate the heavy lifting requirements of refinery, oil and gas, mining, offshore platform and third-generation components for nuclear power plants. Its features include reliable heavy lifting machine with high load moments, limited footprint and low ground bearing pressures that have minimal impact on other site works and flexible worldwide transportation in cost-effective standard shipping containers (approximately 155 containers in full config with jib).

Finding a solution

Sarens also has a variety of gantry systems in its fleet, suitable for a spectrum of needs and loads. Tower systems can be used in combination with strand jacks or gantries can be equipped with their own jacking or climbing systems.

Depending on the load and height of the gantries, external bracings might be necessary. It is possible to use towers in pairs (vessel lifts) or in multi-coupled lifting units (module lifts) to obtain the required lifting setup.

The company has a broad experience in lifting with gantry systems. This ranges from working to lift of a top side of an oil rig of 12,000 tonnes to installing a 6000-tonne shipyard gantry at a height of 140m.

“We have four types of gantries: Sarlift, SMLT, SARtower and SCT. What is special about us is that we can supply all these pieces

individually or in combination with other equipment,” says Mr Verwimp. “Our aim is to come up with a solution for our customer.”

Creative engineering

The company specialises in “creative engineering,” he continues. This means coming up with the right solution and overseeing its delivery. With this in mind, it is looking for growth and it aims to push out in all areas of the petrochemical, and oil and gas, industries.

“We are specialists at what we do,” he says. “We are in a strong position for the future, with a lot of projects ongoing in these industries.

“We are looking for expansion in a number of geographical locations, especially in the USA. And although we may make some small acquisitions in the future, we do expect to see most of our growth achieved organically, because of the specialist equipment we are able to offer.” n