Career
Transporting oversized cargo is about more than just moving it from point A to point B. Firstly because of how it will be transported, as the cargo is too large to be shipped in a standard tent or container. And secondly because of the unique project that each shipment involves, with careful planning, scrupulous attention to detail, and extra monitoring at each stage.
Clients have trusted the AsstrA international corporate group with the transportation of their oversized cargo for 26 years. The company’s wide geographical reach makes it easier to monitor all the necessary transportation processes.
At the end of 2020, AsstrA’s representative office Vladivostok received an official request from an oil and gas company to ship heavy equipment by sea. The project involved the delivery of special oversized equipment from the port of Yantai in eastern China to the Russian port of Vladivostok.
The consignment consisted of 72 items, most of which were large items. Individual parts measured up to 13 meters in length and 5 meters in width and height. The total weight of the cargo exceeded 920 tons.
Georgy Dain
"The project started with the client’s defining the main goal: safe, on-time transportation. Late delivery could potentially lead to additional costs and penalties for the customer. Therefore, in this transport project careful operations and decision making became the norm,” says Georgy Dain, an AsstrA representative in Vladivostok.
The cargo was supposed to arrive at the Port of Vladivostok by a defined date, after which further transportation to the oil and gas condensate field in Yakutia was planned. The tight time frame made it difficult to find a suitable vessel for the oversized cargo. AsstrA’s extensive database of suppliers and strong working relationships with shipowners, however, ensured that these challenges never led to complications for the client.
We chose a tug-pusher as a suitable vessel in terms of size and cost, The range of services provided for the oil and gas industry client included chartering, booking floating cranes at ports for loading and unloading the structure, and customs clearance of the equipment.
"Despite the size of the individual pieces of equipment and the combined shipment overall, the project was implemented in a week. Loading began at the Chinese port on January 17 and the equipment was unloaded in Vladivostok on January 24. The client met all critical deadlines, so the project serves as one more example of our effective workflows," adds Georgy Dain.
