An Award Winning Multi-Scope Lift and Set

As part of a petrochemical facility expansion in Texas, the client needed more than 60 pieces of equipment of various weights and sizes moved and placed in tight confines—in just four months. With very little room for errors or delays, and no time to spare, Deep South’s skilled engineers and managers put together an impressive engineering plan to facilitate a safe and efficient effort.

The key to this successful project was continuous communication between the client and our accomplished project management and field teams.

First Reactions

The endeavor included the move and lift of four reactor vessels, each around 200’ long and 260,000 lbs. These vessels had to be transported from the laydown yard about 200-300 yards from the hook.

To accomplish this task, Deep South relied on an 18-axle-line Scheuerle SPMT to move each of the vessels into position and then a 440-ton Terex-Demag CC-2400-1 crawler crane to lift them into position.

Modules in Motion

One of the most challenging aspects of the project was the engineering and rigging of the "pancake modules," each weighing 100,000-120,000 lbs. Specialized equipment such as a customized jack-and-slide system helped move systems, such as pumps, into areas with tight clearances.

Placing the heavy "pancakes" with varying centers of gravity also required some customized techniques.

Conventional rigging systems would have required assembly and disassembly multiple times to change the inserts and slings for each module. Instead, Deep South deployed its Module Lifting System designed to set multiple objects of different widths, lengths, and centers of gravity with the same rigging. With a 100-ton lifting capacity, this in-house designed, engineered, fabricated, and tested system includes specialized spreader bars and built-in hydraulic cylinders for easy adjustments. The remotely operated system is multi-tiered and composed of six (6) adjustable hydraulic cylinders, one (1) hydraulically variable modular bar in the transverse direction, and two (2) multi-holed modular bars in the longitudinal direction.

The modules were lifted and placed safely, efficiently and ahead of schedule.

Safety Excellence

Other pieces of equipment that had to be lifted and placed included stair modules, each weighing around 30,000 lbs, a 38’ tall tower, small vertical reactors, columns, drums, an elevated flare, thermal oxidizer, fractionator reboiler, offgas scrubbers, wastewater reboiler and melt coolers.

With several Scheuerle SPMTs moving pieces into position, Deep South used a 1,000-ton VersaCrane™ CC-12000 high capacity crawler crane, a 800-ton Tadano-Demag AC-700, a 400-ton Terex-Demag AC-350, and a 500-ton Liebherr LTM-1400-7.1 to lift the many pieces of varying size and weight, as well as a customized jack-and-slide system to help move objects into areas with tight clearances.

The entire project move, lift and set effort was completed two weeks ahead of schedule with no injuries. Deep South was subsequently nominated for and won first place “Best of the Best” from the Houston Business Roundtable Safety Excellence Award program.

Congratulations to the team for completing another successful, safe and well-planned project and for winning HBR's "Best of the Best" safety award.

• Equipment Used

  • Scheuerle SPMT
  • Terex-Demag CC-2400-1
  • Deep South Module Lifting System
  • VersaCrane™ CC-12000
  • Demag AC-700
  • Demag AC-350/6
  • Liebherr LTM-1400-7.1

• Services Used

  • Turnkey Solutions
  • Rigging Services
  • Engineering
  • Heavy Haul
  • Heavy Lift