Six reactors successfully made their way from Yokohama, Japan to Al Jubail Refinery in Saudi Arabia in March, despite the twin hurdles of the devastating earthquake and tsunami, and the known issue of BELUGA CHARTERING GmbH bankruptcy.
The shipment, organized by COORDINADORA, included two 688 t units, measuring 37 m each, two 500 t units and two 311 t units.
To carry out the ocean transport , in October last year we chartered the brand new vessel Beluga Stavanger with a combined lifting capacity of 1.400 t. The extra lifting capacity was necessary because the reactors were to be received onboard barges alongside the vessel in Yokohama, and therefore long lifting distances were expected.
COORDINADORA staff arrived in Japan on March 9 in order to run the last planning meetings before the arrival of the ship. Two days later, the earthquake struck. Despite this we remained there and continued the operations. The vessel arrived on March 13 and commenced the loading operations on March 14. On March 16, the Beluga insolvency file was announced and the loading operations stopped. These were not resumed again until March 25. Despite all these difficulties the ship finally sailed bound for Saudi Arabia with all the cargo on board. The cargo was safely delivered at the end of April.