1st of 4 units set for voyage to Texas

3.19.2009 – Loading the 200-ton refinery module onto an empty barge docked at Cianbro’s Eastern Manufacturing Facility bulkhead required an “engineered ballast plan,” but went better than planned, Bob Germack, project manager for Hake Rigging Co., said Wednesday after the module was settled on the seagoing vessel.

The loading went “better than we could even have hoped,” he said. “It took about nine minutes to fully get on the barge. We pre-ballasted, but we didn’t have to ballast while loading.”

Crews for Hake, which is a division of Barnhart Crane & Rigging, thought they were going to have to pump water into hatches in the barge to counterbalance the load, but it was not needed.

The first module is the smallest of four that will be loaded on the barge, which will set off later this month for the 15- to 20-day trip to Port Arthur, Texas, where they will become part of an expansion at the Motiva Port Arthur Refinery.

Cianbro will send a total of 53 modules from Maine to Texas for the expansion, which is the largest capital project ever undertaken in Texas. Two of the larger modules in the first load have been broken into two parts for the trip, Germack said.

“We’re looking at getting under the next piece right now,” he said at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday. “We won’t move it until tomorrow. We’re moving one every day.

A copyright story and picture from the Bangor Daily News, Thursday, March 19, 2009. Story by Nok-Noi Ricker of the BDN; the picture by Kevin
Bennett.