Portuguese heat for Dutch refinery

THLG’s Portuguese member, Setubal-based Navigomes, has recently completed the shipment of overweight and outsize industrial heaters from Portugal to the Netherlands. In a further example of the broad scope of transport expertise available throughout the HLG network, Navigomes successfully organised the complete transport from Leça do Balio, some 20 kilometres inland from Leixões port in northern Portugal, to delivery at one of Rotterdam’s many oil refinery facilities.

This was certainly no small shipment either – two of the heaters weighed in at 125 tons each and measured 20.5m x 3.40m x 5.90m, while four similar items ranged from 53 to 75 tons apiece.

But according to Luis Branco, managing director of Navigomes, this is all in a day’s work for his expert team. “Project movements make up a regular part of our business, together with air freight and general forwarding,” he says. “We enjoy a close relationship with both government and private sector enterprises in Portugal so we can confidently say that, almost whatever the transport challenge, Navigomes has successfully handled similar movements in the past.”

For the inland movement from the factory to Leixões Navigomes’ project specialists arranged transport on twelve-axles low-loaders with a total length of 44 metres, with the whole convoy being escorted by traffic police and technical experts.

Once safely at the port, two 200-ton cranes, again specially hired by Navigomes for the project, carefully lifted the heaters from the trailers into the hold of “Hansa Kampen”, chartered for the voyage to Rotterdam.

The passage north took the 2950-ton coastal vessel across the Bay of Biscay, a stretch of water noted for its frequent heavy weather, especially in the European winter. However, ‘’Hansa Kampen’’ encountered no such problems and four days later the ship and its valuable cargo was safely alongside at the refinery’s dedicated berth in Rotterdam.

With neither ship nor berth being equipped to lift such heavy items, Navigomes turned to one of Rotterdam’s leading crane-hire businesses for the use of their 400-ton floating crane to complete the shipment.

Once safely alongside the ‘’Hansa Kampen”, the giant lifting rig made light work of the delicate task of positioning the cargo to the receiver’s requirements.

For Navigomes and THLG, another consignment delivered on time and within budget, and another satisfied client!

www.navigomes.pt