Vietnam’s Vantage Logistics, an IFLN Global Projects member, has overseen the shipment of a consignment of outsize, super-heavy pieces of equipment in support of the country’s Long Son petrochemical complex project.

The Long Son project represents a key part of Vietnam’s national strategy of boosting its oil and gas industry out to 2025 and beyond. Vantage was chosen as a subcontractor for various elements of the project and has undertaken shipments in support of it since 2019.

This latest shipment, undertaken early this year, consisted of two items weighing 630 tons and 320 tons, and two of 156 tons each, in addition to numerous less weighty items. The total weight of the consignment was 1,262 tons, while the longest item measured 50.86m in length.

All these items had to be moved from the port of Masan in South Korea to the final destination in Vung Tau province, firstly by sea and then, after unloading, transport by overland trucking, along with all necessary Customs clearance and documentation.

As Vantage project delegation director Truong Thi Ngoc Thuy, known as Kathy, explains: “This was a super heavy-lift movement, and we needed a specialised heavy-duty vessel with at least two cranes with a minimum 500-tonne crane for safe handling. Vantage negotiated the charter of a vessel of BBC Chartering to transport the cargo.”

She points out: ‘This type of vessel is not very common in South-east Asia, and is even less so now during a period of serious economic decline [in the region] due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“In addition, due to the limitations of the channel draft at the port of discharge, as well as safety requirements relating to the inland waterways in this area, the transport vessel not only had to meet demands that commercial ships don’t normally face but also be of sufficiently limited draft to enter the channel.”

The inland transport of these outsize pieces of cargo also represented a challenge.  Vantage opted for 48-axle SPMT (self-propelled modular transporter) equipment for the 630-ton and 320-ton pieces and 14-axle SPMT equipment for the two 155-ton items.

Vantage had answers to every challenge, however. Kathy explains: “In order to ensure the successful and timely implementation of this project, over the course of a month a team of transport engineers with more than 10 years of experience in the heavy-lift cargo transport business, combined with project managers with over 17 years of experience, worked hard to prepare for the shipment.”

In fact, Vantage created a team that brought together safety management expertise, technical engineering expertise, logistics operations experience, Customs brokerage know-how, supervisory and support and project managers.

Together, this team ensured the arrival of the cargo at its destination as planned. According to Kathy, Vantage’s customer appreciated all its efforts and the successful international shipment that it oversaw.

 

Previous News IFLN News Archives