SAL Wins Tricky Heavy Lift Contract from BAM Clough

Image: SAL Heavy Lift

SAL Heavy Lift announced today the signing of a major new contract with Australian marine jetty specialist BAM Clough for the shipping and deployment of LNG and LPG product loading platforms at the INPEX-operated Ichthys LNG Project. According to SAL, the two platforms, currently under construction at Batam, Indonesia, will be among the largest structures ever handled by a heavy lift vessel.

MV SVENJA has been slated for the task of delivering the platforms from Indonesia and offloading them in Darwin Harbor. Complicating the offload process will be an extreme tidal range of up to 7 meters. The SVENJA is one of SAL’s two Type 183 sister ships and equipped with two 1,000-tonne rotating mast cranes. She and her sister vessel are the world’s heaviest lifting ocean transport vessel.

The LNG platform will weigh 1,080 tonnes with dimensions of 40 x 39 x 8 metres and the LPG platform will be even more substantial at 1,320 tonnes with dimensions of 45 x 40 x 8 metres.

Justin Archard, Managing Director of SAL Heavy Lift Singapore and Asia Pacific, said: “We are very excited and privileged to be working with BAM Clough on this important work for the Ichthys Project. Our teams have been working together now for some time. The excellent progress we have made so far is testament to our two companies working to a clear objective.”

The first of the two shipments from Batam will take place mid-2014.