Heavy Goods Through Port of Hamburg

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

On 10 August 2009, the Port of Hamburg was the scene of a very special event. The Unikai team successfully managed the loading of an outsized consignment manufactured by the Pullach-based Linde Engineering Division. Destined for a petrochemical plant in Brazil, this project delivery consisted of a total of 3,600 cubic metres of system components, all of which were successfully transferred with the help of a mobile crane and securely stowed on board the M/V Grande Buenos Aires, a vessel belonging to the Grimaldi shipping company.

The consignment was delivered to the Port of Hamburg by Profreight-Logistic-Group, using a special truck transporter. The heavy goods experts were faced with an exceptional challenge when it came to the conveyance of an oversized tail gas drum (36.52 metres in length, 4.43 metres wide and 4.43 high, weighing 78.2 tons). The entire truck transport unit, including the traction/propulsion machine, came to a length of 72 metres. The overall load weighed something like 200 tons. A 22 axle vehicle had to be put into service for the shipment by road.

This heavyweight project called for the exercise of extreme safety precautions. At the Hamburg end, these were planned and carried out by Hamburg Water Police. ‘Particularly critical factors were building sites, tight curves and bridges. To make it 20090831_1211825402_gastank-transp-hh_6809-02_klein.jpgpossible for the consignment to cross the Köhlbrand at a height of 60 metres, we had to commandeer the bridge for the night of 7 August,’ says Harald Müller, the police commissioner responsible for coordinating the nocturnal operation. He and six other officers saw to it that the colossal load arrived safely at the O’Swaldkai terminal.

Every year the Port of Hamburg handles something like 140 million tons of goods. Non-containerised general cargo accounts for a volume of around 3 million tons. In the first half of 2009 the Port of Hamburg handled a total of 1.21 million tons of non-containerised general cargo. Over the same period, project consignments and heavy loads amounted to 0.34 million tons (an increase of 2.1% in comparison with the first half of 2008). While it must be admitted that imports in the project consignments and heavy goods sector showed a decline in comparison with 2008 (1.2%, or 1,100 tons less), exports achieved positive results with a satisfying increase of 8,200 tons, or 3.4%. ‘More than ever in difficult times for the economy, the Port of Hamburg has special attractions to offer as a universal port, especially in the breakbulk sector – combining as it does an outstanding geographical situation for transport purposes with excellently developed connections with the hinterland, not to mention superlatively efficient multipurpose terminals and a closely linked network of regular ocean liner services,’ was the emphatic judgment of Claudia Roller, Managing Director of Port of Hamburg Marketing.