ALE multi-tasking in Venezuela

Heavy transport and lifting company ALE completed the removal and installation of equipment as part of expansion of the FCC Punta Cardon Refinery in Venezuela.

Operations carried out by UK-based ALE, included the transportation of a new reactor, the site movement of a new domo component and the removal of the existing stripper, absorber, reactor, regenerator, fractionator and domo components.

Removal used a 70 m self-stabilising skidding gantry, which had a 45 x 45 m footprint. Two HLS 500 tonne capacity strand lifting units were positioned on top of the gantry to carry out the lifts, the heaviest of which was 510 tonnes.

Transporting the 510 tonne new reactor from the pre-assembly area to a position beneath the gantry required 28 lines of SPMT with a turning frame. Along the route, the transport had to negotiate bends of 90 degrees and pass under a pipe rack.

This required ALE to jack down the reactor along the total length of the pipe rack using four climbing jacks of 300 tonnes each and four skid lines with SS-150 skidding equipment. The new domo was also moved using 28 axle lines of SPMT, and the fractionator was tilted using a 600 tonne capacity Terex Demag CC 2800-1 lattice boom crawler crane.