In addition to being involved in close to 20 projects a year for a local petrochemicals manufacturer, transport and heavy-lifting services provider Mammoet Southern Africa has noted a marked demand for its transportation, lifting, rigging and installation services in the petrochemicals industry.

“Services demand increased by about 40% over the past three years and is now gradually stabilising,” Mammoet Southern Africa regional commercial director Pieter van der Weele tells Engineering News.

The company’s latest project involves the transportation and installation of two condensers, weighing 60 t and 70 t, for a stabilisation project at a refinery in Secunda, Mpumalanga.

Mammoet Southern Africa used a 600 t crawler crane to remove and replace the old condensers, with the new condensers installed last month. The crawler crane was used, owing to the confined space in which the installation had to take place, adds Van der Weele.

Another project included the installation of five regenerative thermal oxidisers (RTOs) at a refinery in Secunda, in August. As each RTO weighs about 124 t, the company used a 500 t mobile crane to install three RTOs, and the jacking and sliding method to install two RTOs, notes Van der Weele.

Flagship Project
Mammoet Southern Africa remains involved in a tar separator tank replacement project for a petrochemicals refinery in Secunda, which Van der Weele emphasises is the company’s largest project to date for the refinery.

Mammoet Southern Africa marketing and business development manager Ryan Amos adds that the project remains on track for completion in May next year. It entails transporting 30 new duplex steel tanks about 5 km from a tank manufacturer’s factory to the refinery, installing them, removing the old tanks and transporting them to a nearby demolition site.

To date, the company has replaced more than ten of the 30 tanks. One 300 t, two 350 t and two 400 t Mammoet crawler cranes, two ten-line multiaxle trailers and two trucks are currently deployed at the project.

Amos stresses that Mammoet Southern Africa’s capacity to deliver a variety of solutions is more than what the market perceives it to be, as some clients, for example, consider the company only as a lifting solutions provider.

“However, Mammoet Southern Africa strives to find the most significant time-saving solutions for customers through various methods, such as using large cranes for lifting or employing jacking or sliding methods for installation, with careful consideration taken during the planning, the transportation and the installation phases.”

For the tank replacement, Mammoet displayed its ability to provide innovative solutions by designing a specialised spider lifting beam, which allowed for the lifting of the tank in one piece, instead of it being cold cut into smaller pieces and then removed.

“By removing an entire tank at a time, Mammoet Southern Africa saved the refinery about a month on each tank removal,” says Amos, adding that the company’s solutions focus on reducing downtime and increasing uptime.