Bertling Transports 909-Tonne Tower from UK to Singapore (video)

Project forwarder Bertling Logistics was recently called on to ship a 909-tonne intervention tower from Port Clarence on the River Tees in northern England to Singapore.

The move was carried out for FTAI Ocean, a subsea services provider for the offshore oil and gas industry. The tower system, used for well intervention and plug and abandonment operations, was earmarked for installation on FTAI Ocean’s DP3 Well Intervention Vessel, the Pride.

At Port Clarence, Bertling’s project team faced a number of challenges.

A lack of available draught at the yard meant the 40-metre-high tower had to be “lightered” by barge across the river to the waiting heavy-lift vessel at the Port of Middlesbrough, which boasts much deeper draught.

The unit had been jacked up to SPMT height using four, 500-tonne capacity perpetual climbing jacks, with Bertling providing design assistance to allow the retrofitting of the jacking lugs used to insert the SPMT’s beneath the tower and move it to the quay edge.

The logistics specialist also had to contend with headroom restrictions at the historic Tees Transporter Bridge. Safe passage under the bridge at a certain tide height was agreed with the Harbour Master, with suitable draught and tidal curves available during neap tides on six days per month.

The vessel was able to pass under the Transporter Bridge “with just over 1 metre clearance”, Bertling said.

From the UK, the heavy-lift vessel, loaded with the tower and some additional oversized cargo, sailed south via the Suez Canal, the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Malacca – the latter a 550-mile stretch of water offering carriers the shortest shipping route between the Indian Ocean and the Far East.

The ocean-going phase of the project took 28 days.

Prior to arrival in Singapore, Bertling’s engineering team had installed an elevated ramp on the shipyard quay and spacer barges to mitigate the limited draught at the receiving jetty. Once docked, the hulking unit was reloaded onto SPMT trailers and rolled out of the vessel into the yard.

“The transportation project was successfully completed because of careful planning and cooperation between Bertling Logistics’ heavy-lift and engineering team and key first-class subcontractors,” Bertling said.

Check out a video of the move:


Hamburg-based Bertling Logistics will be exhibiting at Breakbulk Europe 2023, taking place on 6-8 June at Rotterdam Ahoy, Rotterdam.