Capital Equipment News June 2016

Johnson Crane Hire RAISES THE BAR ON SHUTDOWN PROGRAMME J ohnson Crane Hire recently success- fully completed several routine lifts as well as a number of heavy lift projects at a major petrochemical plant during its annual maintenance shutdown.

This was the first time in 20 years that this particular plant had tackled a plant upgrade simultaneously with its annual maintenance work. Philip Bailey, of Johnson Crane Hire, says the company completed the project in the 40 day contract period well within schedule and without any LTIs being recorded. A cornerstone of Johnson Crane Hire’s ongo- ing success with lifting contracts is the ex- tensive preparation work that goes into every project, and this is done well before cranes are deployed to site. “We started work on the project eight months prior to arriving on site. This involved inten- sive studies of the lifting programme, starting with site inspection through to undertaking compaction tests to ensure the loading bear- ing capacity of hard stands and marking the positioning of all cranes on site,” says Bailey. Johnson Crane Hire operates an extensive fleet of cranes and was able to draw from this fleet to ensure that those machines sent to site were the most appropriate for the range of lifting applications that would need to be undertaken. The larger cranes were mobilised a week ahead of the programme, and erected and ready to lift a full day ahead of the lifting schedule. Bailey says the onerous nature of the proj- ect, which included numerous tandem lifts in many different areas at the same time, saw the leading South African specialist lifting contractor deploy a sizeable fleet of cranes on the contract. The maintenance aspect of the programme used 20 smaller cranes that were deployed at various plants on the industrial complex. These ranged from the largest, a 120 t unit, to the smallest, a 30 t machine. The project component of the contract called for eight large cranes, ranging from 180 t units through to a 600 t crawler unit.

Johnson Crane Hire operates an extensive fleet of cranes and was able to draw from this fleet to ensure that those machines sent to site were the most appropriate for the range of lifting applications that would need to be undertaken.

large vessels each weighing between 110 t and 117 t. Some of these enormous pressure vessels were 12 m in length with an outside diameter of 12 m. The old vessels were lifted out of the plant using the 600 t crawler crane and Bailey says the largest lifting radius tackled by this crane was 42 m. The vessels were placed in the laydown areas with the assistance of a 330 t tailing crane. One of the complicated heavy lifts involved removing another important plant component, which due to its shape and size was known as the 'submarine'. It was cut into three 8 m sections, each weighing 21 t. A 550 t crane with a 21 m luffing jib was used for this lift which called for a massive 45 metre radius. “This entire project called for detailed plan- ning and attention to detail in all aspects of the work undertaken. All components had to be carefully removed, and new units accu- rately placed and aligned to avoid any dam- age to the plant,” says Bailey. Like all Johnson Crane Hire’s projects, an impeccable safety track-record was achieved on this site, and this is particularly noteworthy as much of the lifting for the maintenance

work called for extensive evening shifts to ensure the programme was met.

The lifting specialist received much praise for its stellar performance. As Bailey notes, this is just one of many successful lifting contracts that the company has completed over the years within the petrochemical sector, and Johnson Crane Hire intends building on this impressive track record! b

These large cranes working on the project component were tasked with replacing 10

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