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Fast and safe: PPG Russia Ship Pipes For Nord Stream Gas Pipeline |
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PPG St. Petersburg, Russia, Eurosib-Logistics, has wrapped up the project of shipping large-diameter pipes (D-1420 mm) for the Russian giant Gazprom for the construction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline. The pipes will be laid at the Nord Stream’s land section between the towns of Gryazovets and Vyborg. The total volume of the transported cargo amounted to 35,000 tonnes, or 3,866 units with the combined length of 44.5 km. Manufactured by the German company Europipe GmbH, the pipes have an internal smooth anti-friction coating and an external three-layer protective polyethylene coating. The cargo was shipped to St. Petersburg by 12 vessels and once in Russia were consigned to Eurosib-Logistics which was subsequently responsible for its customs clearance, loading the pipes onto trucks and hauling them to various construction sites.
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The whole project was completed in an extremely short timeframe, during the two months between the end of January and the beginning of April 2009. In order to comply with such a tough delivery schedule Eurosib-Logistics had to use three berths simultaneously in the port of St. Petersburg for unloading the cargo from the ships, which enabled shorter mooring times as much as possible. The fleet of 54 trucks then hauled the pipes to the respective construction sites, located within the range of 50-200 km from St. Petersburg. The trucks were specially equipped for this kind of transportation with rubberised supports which prevented causing any damage to the pipes’ coating during the trip. Due to the outsized nature of the cargo each truck was issued a special transportation permit and had a rotating beacon. The trucks drove only at designated time intervals during the day and at night under the escort of the traffic police. |
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Eurosib-Logistics has managed to ensure an extremely low rate of damage caused to the cargo during this shipment: while the normal rate for this type of cargo is considered to be under 5%, this shipment had only 0.3% of the cargo damaged. This great result has been achieved thanks to employing tailor-made techniques of trans-shipping and loading pipes onto trucks with the use of soft slings and rubberised grips, as well as maintaining a strict control over the cargo safety at entry and exit points at each stage of the shipping. Eurosib-Logistics is one of Russia’s leading logistical companies, offering intermodal and multimodal shipment of various types of cargo to domestic and outbound destinations. Eurosib-Logistics has a network of 24 offices in Russia and abroad.
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