equipment suppliers are reserving
them further into the future. That in
turn means power generation OEMs
have to be very accurate with their production timetables to ensure they meet
shipping schedules.
Hard evidence of this came recently
from logistics research organization
Transport Intelligence, which reported that the global freight forwarding
market saw another year of “stellar”
growth in 2006. The sea freight market saw the highest increase in 2006,
soaring by 15% — only slightly lower
year-on-year growth than in 2005. Air
freight revenues rose by 12%, the
same rate as a year earlier.
Underliyng this trend of a high
demand for specialist heavy lift ships
are developments at Netherlands-based Jumbo Shipping, which has a
history of transporting gas turbines and
generators worldwide and works closely with the power generation equipment manufacturers.
With the introduction of the MV
Jumbo Javelin and MV Fairpartner in
2004 and 2005 it was made possible
to efficiently transport equipment up
to a single piece weight of 1600 tons.
The vessels are 144 m long and are
powered by two MAN B&W 9L32/40
engines offering a total of 8460 k W
and capable of 17 knots.
In order to meet the industry
demands for safely lifting and transporting even heavier pieces of equipment, Jumbo decided to upgrade both
vessels’ lift capacity to 1800 tons.
Furthermore, two newbuilding vessels
with the same 1800 ton lift capacity were
ordered, scheduled for delivery in 2008.
These two vessels are being built in
Galati, Romania, by Damen Shipyards.
According to Rolls-Royce, air transport is making a growing contribution
toward ensuring the ideal delivery of
energy products, and last year the company shipped an unpackaged industrial Trent engine to the Middle East for
the Dolphin Gas Project — part of a
400 km subsea pipeline between Qatar
and the United Arab Emirates.
The company used a Boeing 747
freighter. Smaller unpackaged RB211
engines also regularly travel the same
way, with Rolls-Royce saying that air
transport is a good option when the
cost premium for air freight is insignificant compared to the benefits of getting
the customers’ plant in operation faster
due to the shorter delivery cycle time.
Air freight is also used when the ultimate location is remote or where overland travel is difficult.
The various pressures on customers
to get their equipment in operation as
fast as possible mean reducing the total
cycle time from order to delivery.
Choosing the right transport can save
crucial time, and this was demonstrated by a recent movement of three skid-
RB 211 packages for customer Petrobras. The photo shows two modules, each one containing
two RB211 gen-sets.
