Unusually for UTT who normally performs jobs anywhere in Spain except Barcelona, 2003 has seen frenzied activity since early days of January.

2 different Tunneling machines were finally ready for shipment at the beginning of this year and after some stiff negotiations, UTT was able to get first a machine from French manufacturer NFM – total of 30 cargo units and 1700 tons, with the heaviest two units weighing in at 230 tons and 125 tons respectively. The largest diameters were well over 7 meters. The project site Can Zam in the Barcelona suburb of Santa Coloma meant all loads crossing the City diagonally from south-west to north east - most major moves being performed in the small hours of the night. The whole machine, once set up is 12 meters diameter and 130 meters long.

The shipments, arranged by a French forwarder (UTT’s client), came in 6 river-sea chartered vessels with up to eight loads on one ship. For the heaviest two loads 2 x 500 ton telescope cranes were rented in for the day and cargo was safely offloaded. Other cargoes were lifted directly by the stevedores’ Demag heavy duty port cranes with 100 ton capacity at 20 meters working radius. Transports were right on schedule within 48 max 72 hours after ship’s arrival each shipment was safely delivered to site where a Demag cc4800 handled the offloading and assembly cranage for this monster. The cargo being for the Barcelona Metro, the final client was the Generalitat of Catalonia, which meant a “political” visit for the major lifting and transport operations.

Cont`d...

more : UTT in The Heavy Lift Directory