Collett makes 400 deliveries for Sarens

Specialist transport contractor Collett in the UK has completed a four-month operation to deliver components to build a 5,000 tonne capacity crane.

The giant SGC-250 is a lattice boom super heavy lift ring crane also known as Big Carl. It is owned and built by international heavy lift and transport specialist Sarens based in Belgium. On its first job it will help build the Hinkley Point C (HPC) nuclear power station under construction in Somerset, south west England.

Collett said it was contracted to undertake all vessel discharge procedures, heavy lift services and heavy transport operations. The Yorkshire-based company moved the crane’s fabricated steel pieces with a total combined weight of more than 3,000 tonnes. They were carried from Avonmouth docks in Bristol, a journey of 45 miles (73 km) to the construction site, in Somerset on the banks of the River Avon.

It took the Collett team working two 12-hour day shifts to unload all the components from the delivery ship. A short timeframe meant Collett engaged all available crane services, including port cranes, mobile cranes and seven specialized transport vehicles. The pieces were arranged in a laydown area in the port to an agreed plan for sequential onward delivery to site in the order they’d be needed for the crane’s assembly.

The HPC Delivery Management System gave specific routes for the deliveries to pre-arranged dates and timeslots. In April Collett started transporting the crane pieces to site. Over the next four months Collett made more than 400 deliveries.

Sarens revealed the SGC-250 in November 2018 at the port of Ghent in Belgium where it was assembled for testing. It will be used to lift more than 600 fabrications, including the heaviest ones, namely the five major parts of each unit’s steel containment liner and dome. HPC is the largest and most complex civil engineering project in the UK, Collett said.