Sarens Sinotrans (SSJV) is proud to be engaged in a two-year agreement with Dajin Offshore Heavy Industry Co., Ltd for the load-out of several offshore wind monopiles. Dajin’s facility in Penglai is the world’s largest offshore wind power monopile production base, providing extra-large monopiles, weighing up to 2.000 tonnes, for wind projects around the world.

SSJV has and continues to play an important role in Daijin’s offshore monopile load out operations, including planning the pre-construction base, providing storage design, developing on-site route design, creating vessel storage plans, and providing pre-technical support work such as SPMT arrangement schemes and saddle design.

Between April and November 2023, SSJV successfully loaded out 48 monopiles as part of six shipments destined for the UK’s Moray West Offshore Wind Farm Project. The largest of these monopiles measured 10 metres in diameter and 80 metres long, and weighed over 2.000 tonnes. 

SSJV used 54 axle lines of SPMTs and was responsible for SPMT weighing, cradle installation, and the complete load-out operation. The operation came with certain challenges, however: for example, SSJV needed to design the transport saddle to meet the requirements of different types of monopiles. It also needed to use a lateral SPMT arrangement for the first time, and due to the ship’s limited width, had to hang up some axles to achieve the right positioning before quickly and safely removing the saddle and loading out each monopile. SSJV’s technical and operational teams cooperated perfectly to complete this operation. 

More recently, in January and March of 2024, SSJV successfully loaded out two monopile shipments destined for the NOY-lles D'Yeu et Noirmoutier offshore wind farm project in France. For this, SSJV had to load 61 monopiles for four different shipments. Because their size and weight were smaller than those for the Moray West project, SSJV used 48 axles of SPMTs and four power packs for the operation. The next two shipments for this project will be loaded in June and August of 2024. 

The smooth, successful operations SSJV has undertaken on behalf of Dajin are inseparable from the support and help of several colleagues, including: 

• The technical team, represented by Yang Guangjuan, Wang Shuai, and Dong Ruitian, who conducted pivotal technical and design work in the early stages to ensure the project’s smooth development.
• The site management team, represented by site manager Lu Lie, site engineer Chen Xin, and operations supervisor Sun Yu. With complex operations and a heavy workload to manage, the success of these projects cannot be separated from their excellent site management work.
• The SPMT operation team, represented by SPMT team leader Zhang Jie, Hao Ningming, and others for their hard work, patience, and care.
• The technical team at Sarens headquarters for their support and help.
• Project manager Kevin Liu for his leadership for these ongoing operations.

The success of these projects can be attributed to the strength of the SSJV joint venture, which was founded in 2015 by Sarens NV and Sinotrans Heavy-Lift. With its head office in Shanghai, SSJV is focused on delivering a high standard of engineered transportation and heavy lifting services to clients across a variety of industries. SSJV is a preferred partner for large-scale module load-outs at major Chinese module yards, and holds the record for the heaviest load out: 14.000+ tonnes loaded out via SPMT! SSJV’s equipment and resources include several axles of SPMTs, large crawler cranes, and a set of SMLT lifting towers and Sarspin system.