Vantage’s 2021 began with a proudly milestone when we have successfully provided the integrated logistics services including international freight, customs clearance, domestic transportation (discharge at port, transport delivered to the job-site, and discharge at job-site) for super heavy-lift cargoes, which are considered the heart of Long Son Petrochemical Complex.
The Long Son Petrochemical Complex project in Ba Ria – Vung Tau province is considered a key project in concretizing the policy of the strategic orientation of the development of the Vietnam Oil and Gas industry to 2025, with a vision to 2035, to step up the petrochemical refining industry, for domestic service and for export. With a total investment value of up to 5.4 billion USD, is expected to contribute 60 million USD / year to the national budget during 30 years of operation.
Due to the importance and significance of the project, it is a must that all the contracted contractors/vendors/service providers to commit the safety time frame, the implementation plan must be the most optimal, applying scientifically modern technology and equipment during project construction to ensure absolute safe operation.
Being selected as the logistics contractor to provide logistics services for the super heavy-lift cargoes of the Long Son Petrochemical project is both an opportunity and a great challenge for Vantage’s Project team.
The shipment consists of 4 super-weighted packages with the weight of 630 tons, 320 tons, and 2 packages of 156 tons, together with many pieces of equipment of different sizes, of which the largest size has a length up to 50.86m.
In order to ensure the successful and timely implementation of this project, during a month, a team of transport engineers with more than 10 years of experience in the heavy-lift cargo transport profession, combined with the project managers with over 17 years of experience, have been working hard with more than 1,200 hours of preparation, along with more than 500 hours of enthusiastic work of each project staff.
1. International freight:
This is super heavy-lift cargo so it is necessary to have a specialized heavy-duty vessel with at least 2 cranes with a capacity of min 500MT/ crane for safe handling. This type of vessel is not very popular in Southeast Asia, especially during the period of serious economic decline due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In addition, due to the limitation of the channel draft at port of discharge as well as the security of the specific inland waterways in this area, the transport vessel is not only having to meet the higher security demand than common commercial ships but also still need to calculate on how to safely carry the goods but still have to maintain a limited draft to enter the channel.
Facing this challenge, Vantage Project team had to evaluate and track the schedules of most of the fleets of shipping lines specializing in the transportation of supermassive cargo in the region over a long period of time. At the time we need to fix the vessel, most of the suitable vessels are in Europe and the US, therefore, need a rather long ballast trip back to loading port (more or less 30 days).
After 2 weeks of searching and negotiating efforts, the Vantage Project team has successfully arranged a vessel that fully satisfies the above factors. With the shortest mobilizing route (only 20 days) to the loading port to transport to Vietnam, Vantage has helped customers to save a significant amount of ballast mobilization, as well as shorten waiting time for ships, ensuring the project progress as planned.
2. Customs clearance:
With the advantage of being a customs agent, the customs procedures of these shipments have been professionally qualified by Vantage specialists, who understand the applicable law and are skilled in customs clearing before the date of arrival, helping the pick-up at the discharge port went smoothly, receiving high satisfaction from the local Customs Department as well as investors and customers.
3. Domestic transportation:
Bearing in mind the importance of the safety and accuracy of the project, the Vantage Project team always sets safety at the highest level in all preparations and throughout the implementation period.
Vantage Project team participates in meetings to present their options to stakeholders
The transport equipment used is a specialized equipment type consisting of 48 SPMT hydraulic axles in coupling combination for large cargo (units 630 tons + 320 tons) and 14 hydraulic SPT axles for smaller cargo (2 units of 155 tons) are customized for each individual unit, strictly follow the method statement set up by Vantage’s engineering team.
This requires very high coordination and minute-accurate to ensure the delivery schedule to release the vessel early but still meet safety criteria during transport and unloading at the job site.
Check and test the ground load on the route, measure the slope and calculate the pull/push/compression/tension for each package during transportation.
Understanding this important criterion, Vantage has organized a team of professional personnel including 7 groups of independent professional activities but closely interacting and working include:
1- Safety management team (HSE team)
2- Technical team (Engineer)
3- Logistics team (Operation)
4- Customs broker
5- Team operating equipment (Driver + Signal man)
6- Supervisor & Support Team
7- Project Manager
Therefore, for each package, though requires different precision and closely related to each other in order of delivery, as well as time and space are limited, still handled well by Vantage’s project team beyond expectation.
10 axle hydraulic trailers were used to transport normal cargoes to the job-site in order to ensure the project planned schedule.
The successful handling of this shipment is not only improving the service quality of Vantage in terms of profession but also demonstrating the spirit of solidarity and good coordination among members of Vantage’s Project team in particular, and the whole company in general. This shows that in addition to safety compliance and high expertise, the rigor and project management capabilities of Vantage are one of the crucial criteria for successful handling the shipment exceeded customer progress.
The completion of the first shipment in the new year 2021 brings us not only pride but also encourages us to dedicate and contribute more and more success to customers.
Leave a comment