DHL Global Forwarding, the air and ocean freight specialist of Deutsche Post DHL Group, is undertaking the transport of four enormous waste heat boilers from Germany to Saudi Arabia. The multimodal movement is being handled by DHL Industrial Projects, a unit within DHL Global Forwarding, specializing in safe and reliable transport of over-sized and heavy-lift cargo as well as complex end-to-end project forwarding.
For the spectacular transportation of the four 140-tonne boilers measuring 3.70 meters in height, 4.10 meters in width and 19 meters in length, the world’s largest cargo aircraft Antonov AN225 is being deployed. A waste heat boiler is about as heavy as 24 full-grown African elephants.
“Logistics, especially within the break-bulk segment, is all about local knowledge, mainly with regards to specificities of different ports or with reference to infrastructure, equipment, roads and regulation,” explains Nikola Hagleitner, CEO DHL Industrial Projects. “When it comes to break-bulk logistics, our customers rely on our dedicated teams and their extensive expertise in some 60 offices across 45 countries.”
The transit of the four super-sized waste heat boilers starts at the manufacturer’s plant in Berlin. From there, they are transported to the airport of Leipzig via the river Elbe, reloaded at the port of Aken and via road. From Leipzig, the heavy lift is then shipped to Saudi Arabia. On their entire journey, the waste heat boilers are moved with the help of a 1,000-tonne-mobile crane, a barge and a heavy goods transporter with 20 axles and a total weight of around 275 tonnes, as well as the unique Antonov AN225 airplane, the largest cargo plane in the world.
The heavy-duty freight is divided into four transports with an interval of roughly two to four weeks, each taking about seven days. The first three waste heat boilers have already arrived at their destination in Jubail at the Persian Gulf.
