Hitachi pressure vessel makes big move from Saskatoon to Fort McMurray

The biggest load ever to travel on a provincial highway in Saskatchewan has completed its journey to an oilsands construction site in Alberta.

Mammoet Canada Western Ltd. recently transported a giant pressure vessel from Hitachi Canadian Industries in Saskatoon to a Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL) worksite in Fort McMurray, Alberta.

“It’s a vertical processing tower that operates on an upgrader,” explained Murray Daku, Hitachi VP and COO.

“The vessel, which is installed vertically, will be part of the refining process for bitumen.”

The massive piece of oilsands equipment is about 62 metres long, more than five metres wide and weighs 384 metric tonnes.

“We received the order for the vessel and started design work in late 2007,” said Daku.

“We started fabrication in April 2008 and just finished in the last couple of weeks. We have probably put in the equivalent of 16 people years of design and labour in the vessel.”

The completed vessel is so massive that it can’t go over bridges and must stay away from power lines and highways with overpasses.

“We did the jacking and skidded it out of the shop at Hitachi,” said Mammoet project manager Brett Bergermann. “It was then jacked to loading height and loaded over the past weekend.”

The vessel was transported southwest to Rosetown, Saskatchewan and then made its way along Highway 36, Highway 28 and Highway 63 to northern Alberta.

Bergermann said that transportation included a special unit trailer under the front and back end of the vessel, with two tractor trailers pulling, and two pushing.

The four Kenworth trucks have beefed up frames, heavy duty drive trains and about 600 horse power.

Each trailer has an operator to steer and keep the load level.

“A supervisor drives ahead to control traffic, look for obstacles and tell the drivers what curves are coming up,” said Bergermann.

Escorted by police, the convoy can travel at a maximum speed of 35 kilometres per hour and is able to cover between 150 and 180 kilometres each day.

Mammoet started planning for the move before the pressure vessel was ordered.

“There was a preliminary route study done from Saskatchewan to see if there was a viable route for something of this size because it had never been done before,” said Bergermann.

“Once the vessel was ordered, we started on route planning. We had to work with Saskatchewan highways bridge engineers, so we could go to the Saskatchewan border without crossing any bridges.”

Mammoet has hauled larger loads to Fort McMurray from Edmonton, but this was the first one to originate from Saskatchewan.

The trip took eight days and covered 1,920 kilometres.

Mammoet specializes in customized transport solutions and factory-to-foundation heavy lifting. Hitachi’s main businesses include custom machining, fabricating, assembly and field services.