On November, 18 the VI Conference «HEAVY RUSSIA» organized by «International Business Forum» (IBF) Company took place in Moscow.

This Conference is the annual platform and this difficult year the forum gathered more than 240 delegates from 17 world countries: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Romania, Belgium and the Netherlands.

The Conference General Sponsor title was taken by international logistic operator «GEFCO» – the leader in logistics for industrial companies. The event was also sponsored by «Chandler GmbH», «Instar Logistics», «COMETTO» and German Port of Sassnitz.

Traditionally, the most anticipated and busy discussion was the government regulation of the branch. First of all, this involves terms and procedure of OOG transport permitting, issue of corruption in regulatory authorities, as well as new legislative initiatives. Conference participants could address their questions to the top managers of Rosdormonitoring and State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the RF Ministry of Internal Affairs (GIBDD).

In his speech Andrey Chertkov, Deputy Director of Rosdormonitoring, mentioned that the annual damage incurred by heavy cargo carriers to the federal and regional roads amounted to 2.6 trillion RUR. The third of the companies infringe the RF legislation, average overweight during transportation of products being almost half of the admissible value. As a rule, main violators are: vehicles and road trains with five or six axes. In this respect, as a special concession the State will increase permissible load to 44t as of January, 01, 2015. Therefore, according to new regulations the damage will be paid as follows: the fewer “wheels on an axis” – the fewer financial losses of a logistic operator when paying a fine.

Natalya Timofeeva, Chairperson of Oversize, Heavy and Hazardous Cargo Haulers’ Union, replied to these accusations in her speech. In her view, federal and regional highways are in a poor condition only because the “road authorities” themselves do not do anything. It is no good to throw the book at the haulers. The quality of the roads does not meet the needs of the age: GOST in this field hasn’t been revised since the 80s. Nobody cares that the traffic intensity and loads have dramatically changed long ago.

She also added that all innovations considerably worsened the status of carriers and increased the time of getting permits for oversize and heavy cargo transport. Thus, the Order ¹258 by the Ministry of Transport does not give an exact definition of a «cargo name». That is why state officials interprete it in a different way which makes it difficult to issue permits. As reported by her, permits are issued in time only to those intermediator firms which are affiliated with state authorities in any way. Control over driving and driver’s rest is still an outstanding issue. At present, legal requirement to work time logging is of declarative nature. Therefore, there is no tool to efficiently provide for safety compliance supervision both at direct control “on the road” and at road traffic accident investigations.

She also mentioned that the Portal of state services has been out of order since June, 2014. Furthermore, even if the documents were accepted in electronic format, you had to bring the second package of hard copies to GIBDD. It means that the carriers still show notes, certificates, letters of attorney in two formats spending twice as much time.

In his turn, Sergey Tropin, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of SRO «NPO of contribution to oversize and heavy cargo transportation «Carriers’ Union «Spetstyazhtrans», expanded on possibility of unification of carriers and joint trouble-shooting. As is generally known, a proper state license had been needed for transportation of equipment for oil, gas and chemical works and the energy sector up to 2005. But while preparing for accession of Russia to the World Trade Organization (WTO), licensing of motor transport and many other types of activities was cancelled. Relaxation of control seemed a good benefit for those business owners who wanted to take advantage of the flashing freedom. But the transport contract givers began to exercise non-confidence. Relaxation of state control made a lot of them turn to foreign carriers of heavy loads who work by European regulations and standards and have proper certificates. But non-domestic companies do not wish to see into complex someone else’s rules and hire the same Russian contractors on the territory of Russia for smaller fees. That is why the Russian oversize haulers face a natural issue – how to protect their interests in these conditions? One of the replies, in speaker’s opinion, can be found in the best domestic practices of self-regulation, for instance, in construction or engineering branches.

We have established a good tradition to devote one session to implementation of large-scale projects of the outgoing year. Like never before, this year has been rich in various records and achievements.

Thus, Andrey Kopin, Head of Chandler GmbH Project Department, shared Company’s competence in delivering the extra-heavy outsize equipment for construction of advanced petroleum refining complex at LLC «Lukoil-Volgogradneftepererabotka», Volgograd. Due to weather factors the Company specialists had to take turns to roll the reactors from one barge to another one afloat, using self-propelled modular systems. As a whole, rolling of a single reactor and Ro-Ro unloading took 4 days. The unique operation on this kind of transshipment of 845t and 1.116t reactors was completed in CIS countries for the first time.

Alexey Mamykin, Head of Business Development Department of «Instar Logistics» took the floor to tell about hazards and particular features of moving the large-scale «turn-key» industrial project by the example of the project for Angarsk refinery. Peculiarity of this project was that the experts had to dismantle the hydrocracking and hydrotreatment units at one of the operational refineries in Canada and then deliver it to Angarsk. At that, they had to ship over 150 oversize CLL with a total weight of more than 4000t and the heaviest collo – 430t. The operation was launched in May, 2013 and called for implementation of complex transport and logistic charts and uncommon engineering solutions. Furthermore, you had to consider the financing interruptions, as well as keep in mind the risks brought about by integration of various transport operations and associated fails, such as delays in railway platforms supply or unreadiness of a port to accommodate the cargoes.

The topic of serious heavy-lift-related risks was followed up by Vadim Orlov, Project Director, Equipment Transport and Installation, “Spetstyazhavtotrans” Group. One of the landmark projects of this year was delivery of 15 heavy units to Nizhnekamsk for the residue reduction complex under construction. 4 contractors were in charge of shipping the equipment. As a result, the first crane vessel with the load was three weeks late to Saint-Petersburg, and the second one was record-breaking early for one week. So, the barges failed to unload the first crane vessel and initiate unloading of the second vessel. The Client had to face considerable demurrage of the crane vessels and a risk of missing the navigation. But in spite of all mismatches, the cargo was successfully delivered to the destination point and, what is more, two records were witnessed in Nizhnekamsk on September, 12, 2014. Russian Record and European Record on «River transportation of the heaviest 1377.9t load». The nationwide record on motor transportation of the same cargo was registered on October, 01, 2014.

A specific place at the Conference of 2014 was taken by working in the Arctic and High North. Thanks to mineral deposits and numerous projects on their development and processing this region remains one of the most interesting for project forwarders. At the same time – this is the most “problematic” region, both because of its geographical remoteness and in terms of infrastructure and climatic aspects. Alexander Goloviznin, Director, Logistics and Analytics of “Morstroytechnology”, expanded on all infrastructure projects in the Russian High North and issues faced by companies undertaking cargo transport to this region.

Karen Stepanyan, Director of “Sovfracht-Yamal, followed up sharing experience of working on “Yamal LNG” Project. Among other things he mentioned that despite hopeful announcements of experts on gradual ice clearance in the Arctic, ice formation remains cyclic. In October, 2013 there was clear water not far from Alexandra Island, in 2014 ice formation began in September. Vilkitsky Strait was ice-covered for the whole 2013.

Sponsor of the Conference, the Dutch ZPMC – Red Box Energy Services, represented the project of an ice class vessel of heavy lift type designed for shipping super-heavy and OOG cargoes. In January 2016 two vessels of higher Polar class shall be floated off the Chinese shipyard. They are being built as per the project of Finnish Aker Arctic Technology. It is expected that they will be used for delivering cargoes for construction of “Yamal LNG” natural gas liquefaction plant.

Another topic of 2014 was water transport. Gennady Egorov, General Director of “Marine Engineering Bureau”, highlighted the topic of shipping outsize and heavy loads by domestic water transport. In his view, in spite of active construction of new vessels and barges, we need to intensify the upgrade of river transport as a whole and fleet in particular. To facilitate river shipbuilding we need a ship disposal grant – one-time payment to a shipping company in case of old fleet disposal which may be used only for construction or purchase of a new vessel.

Not for the first time “HEAVY RUSSIA” event touched upon the latest technologies which make the life easier for the forwarders of super heavy loads. Thus, “STS” Company presented solutions for complicated and special transport tasks using professional cargo lifting devices. Of special interest to the delegates was reinforcing of bridge structures. “STS” also shared their engineering solutions in this field.

If you are interested in further details on the Conference feel free to contact our Organizing Committee at e-mail: info@ibforum.ru

If you are interested in further details on the Conference, feel free to contact our Organizing Committee at +79263772080 or e-mail: info@ibforum.ru