DELIVERY OF THREE THOUSAND TRUCKLOADS OF EQUIPMENT FOR MOSCOW REFINERY

As part of the implementation of the third phase of the modernisation of the Moscow Refinery of Gazprom Neft PJSC in 2022, RTL carried out a project to supply from EU countries, the Asian region and Russian manufacturers. The heart of the new hydrocracking unit will be two reactors manufactured by Izhorskiye Zavody PJSC. The first stage reactor is 52 metres long, 7.4 metres high, 6.3 metres wide and weighs over 1,200 tons. Shipment of the equipment began in June 2022 from one of Izhorskiye Zavody PJSC’s workshops in the Kolpinsky district of St. Petersburg.

A self-propelled modular transporter was used to transport the equipment from the manufacturing plant to the berth where it was transferred to a river barge. The distance from the manufacturing plant to the transshipment berth is 13 kilometres, which was covered in two days. The route of the transporter crossed the main line of the Oktyabrskaya Railway. A train-free window was organised for the passage across the railway tracks with the suspension of freight and passenger trains, including high-speed electric trains Sapsan. On arrival at the berth, the reactor was transferred to a Project 16801 dry dock barge. The barge was loaded using the roll-on method, which is well established in project logistics, whereby the transporter is driven slowly down special ramps onto the deck of the barge, where the cargo is lowered onto the supporting bollards by means of a hydraulic suspension stroke.

To stabilise the barge, ballast water was alternately pumped in and out of the ballast tanks while the equipment was on board. The entire loading process took six hours, during which more than three million litres of water were pumped through the ballast tanks – the equivalent of two Olympic swimming pools. The further route from St. Petersburg to Moscow went through Ladoga and Onega lakes, the Volga-Baltic system of channels, the Volga and Moscow rivers and the Moscow Canal.

The length of the water route was 1,300 kilometres and the cargo was delivered in 14 days. To ensure the tug and tow could safely pass under the low-lying bridges near the Kremlin embankment, the barge was specially lowered by 30 centimetres to avoid colliding with the bridge structures. Engineering geological and hydrological surveys and the preparation of design documentation for the future loading and unloading cluster on the Moscow River began 18 months before the unloading of oversized and heavy lift equipment in the immediate vicinity of the Moscow Refinery construction site. The construction phase was carried out by RTL’s construction department and lasted 10 months. The heavy lift cargo was unloaded from the barge to the berth using a roll-out method. The entire unloading process took no more than five hours. For the «last mile», the reactor was transported from its berth on the Moscow River to the construction site of the Moscow Refinery’s hydrocracking unit via the city’s road network. To avoid damage to underground utilities, the load of the self-propelled conveyor was distributed evenly across the roadway by the 2,556 wheels of the self-propelled modules. This completed the transport of the heaviest of the three thousand items. RTL has once again that the transportation of the latest oversized technological equipment for the upgrade of modern enterprises in Russia is a complex but feasible process.