A Desert Storm

Techlift’s first venture into the Middle East came in 2007. We were asked by Foster Wheeler to provide heavy lift / transport engineering and coordination services for SABIC’s Sharq Third Expansion Project at Jubail Industrial City, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The project included the construction of world scale ethylene, polyethylene and ethylene glycol plants.

Foster Wheeler undertook the EPC Management of the project with contractors including Shaw Stone & Webster, Samsung, Linde and CB&I constructing the plants.

The project required multiple mechanical contractors and over 150 cranes on site, with capacities ranging from 20te to 1,600te, coordination, planning and logistics played a big part in ensuring safe and efficient lifting operations.

With temperatures reaching over 50°C in the summer months and desert sand storms rolling across the site making it impossible to be outside, the successful construction of this huge facility is a credit to the thousands of personnel involved.

Techlift’s scope of work included the following activities:

• Review and approve PAR transport studies
• Review and approve PAR lifting studies
• Oversight of column installations using strand jack tower systems
• On site management of heavy transport and SPMT operations
• On site management of heavy lift operations
• Provision of rigging workshops for local contractors
• Heavy lift and transportation presentations to client HSE teams
• Auditing of mechanical contractor lifting operations