SAL delivers from China to Norway

A dozen bridge sections for the Beitstadsundbrua bridge from China to Norway have been delivered by SAL Heavy Lift.

The final bridge is part of the largest road construction project in northern Trøndelag, will be 580 metres long and will connect the municipalities of Steinkjer and Malm, crossing the Beitstadfjorden.

The bridge will make travelling between northern parts of Trøndelag county safer, as well as reducing travelling time.

SAL’s heavy lift vessel MV Trina (Type 176) was appointed to support the construction of the new bridge by shipping the bridge sections from Nantong, China to Malm, Norway. The 12 sections weigh a total of 2.800 tonnes, with the heaviest unit weighing 426 tonnes and the longest unit measured 75 x 5.9 x 5.8 m (that one weighed 327 tonnes).

With a total of four single lifts and eight tandem lifts, the SAL experts were able to stow all the bridge sections in two layers under deck, and another layer on deck of the vessel.

“It only took us 35 days to directly sail to Malm from Nantong in China,” Sune Thorleifsson, head of projects at SAL explains, “despite the unique conditions in the port of Malm, with an only 20 m wide jetty and 2 m tidal range, it took just 6 days until we were able to successfully and smoothly deliver 20.668 cbm [cubic metres] of cargo to our client.”

Local port regulations meant all of the bridge sections were directly discharged onto self propelled modular transporter (SPMT), 25 m away from alongside the vessel. A tailor-made mooring arrangement contributed to the success of the discharging operations.

“During the period of discharge of the bridge segments to the Beitstadsundet Bridge, onto SPMTs for transport to Fosdalen-Industrier AS`s assembly site, we experienced a good and professional collaboration with SAL,” said Terje Skjevik, owner and CEO of Fosdalen-Industrier AS.

“We are very satisfied with the overall performance, on HSE, on technical and on schedule. All parties knew the challenging environment for the discharge, in spite of these challenges the operation and collaboration were excellent.”

Alex Birger Grieg AS, the last bridge section was successfully discharged early January 2019. Installation works are planned to start around Easter. The entire road building project – which involves building new and improved roads between the towns of Sprova, Malm and Dyrstad – will be finished and open to public by the end of 2019.