Almajdouie, the leading project logistics company in Saudi Arabia, completed land transportation of the world’s largest evaporator and the heaviest load ever moved in the Middle East. In size, the cargo is equivalent to a football field. It measures 124 meters long, 34 meters in width and 12 meters in height. Overall weight of the evaporator produced by Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction (Korea) is 4891 tons.
The final destination of this unique unit is the “Ras Al Khair”, sea water desalination facility operated by the Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) in Saudi Arabia. The USD 1.46-billion-dollar project is going to be the world’s biggest sea water desalination plant. Estimated capacity is 228 million gallons (863 million litres) per day which makes the facility the world’s largest in production volumes. The plant is capable of supplying 3.5 million people with drinking water on a daily basis.
All participants in the project have been preparing for this transport for several months. A masterpiece of logistics that could have only been realized through the perfect cooperation of all those involved in the project. Almajdouie’s main scope of work was to receive the unit at the Ras Al Khair jetty from the delivery vessel, roll off onto shore, transport and finally position onto the site foundation.
Upon its arrival in the port, 172 axle lines on SCHEUERLE SPMTs belonging to Almajdouie were waiting to take delivery. The evaporator was rolled onto the shore. Altogether, 688 tyres began to move in order to lift the 4,891-ton load from the pontoon. SPMT (Self-Propelled Modular Transporter) had to move slowly at turtle speed to carefully maintain the balance on both sides of the barge. Ballasting – balancing the equipment on the barge with counter weight – was being done concurrently by the ship crew.
Yet another herculean task came unexpectedly in the form of ongoing road construction work on the stipulated route, due to which a new road had to be laid down all the way up to the main entrance of the site. Despite initial hiccups, the first evaporator reached its destination within 24 hours of departure from the port.
In 2010, Almajdouie already transported six units of evaporators for Shuweihat S2 IWPP Project in Abu Dhabi (UAE), which measured length of 104.7 x width 31.4 x height of 11 meters and weighed 4,600 tons in total. By moving this evaporator, Almajdouie broke its previous record as this one weighs almost 300 tons more. With the transport of this evaporation plant, Almajdouie Logistics has secured an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records. A total of five evaporators of same weight and dimension have been moved successfully by now, and Almajdouie expects to move the remaining three evaporators by the first quarter of 2013.