CASES

Five years in the planning. One new airport - and 88 cargo
flights in 103 days delivering 6,000 tons. Thanks to an
outstanding team of partners, in 2014 the world’s second
largest natural gas deposits in the Southern Highlands and
Western Provinces of Papua New Guinea will begin the first
gas supplies to consumers in Asia.
CASES

TUDY
This is the story of how logistics,
infrastructure and gas production
and processing specialists came
together to turn an ambitious project
plan into a reality.

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CASE STUDY
WITH TEAMWORK,
ANYTHING IS
POSSIBLE
Finding natural oil and gas
energy reserves is challenging
enough but extracting them
can be even more complex and
capital intensive and leaves no
margin for error.
Increasingly, the world’s leading energy
corporations have to target more remote
regions of the planet to develop new
processing and pumping facilities. The
risks are high but so too are the rewards
and economic benefits for both industry
and national and local economies.
In Papua New Guinea, the discovery of
natural gas deposits in its Hela, Southern
Highlands and Western Provinces
offered the potential to increase the
country’s GDP. ExxonMobil PNG Limited,
the operator of the PNG LNG Project,
estimates that over the life of the gas
production and processing project, over
nine trillion cubic feet of gas will be
produced and sold. The company began
construction of the Project in 2010 and
the first LNG will be exported in the
second half of 2014.
But first there was a major
logistics challenge.
Building a gas conditioning plant in
the Highlands of Papua New Guinea
was not going to be easy. The region
is predominantly rugged mountainous
terrain and conditions are made more
challenging by the 9,000mm of rainfall in
the area throughout the year.
Logistically the biggest challenge was to
deliver equipment and materials from
the ports of Lae and Port Moresby to
the Hides Gas Conditioning Plant, which
is located in the Southern Highlands of
Papua New Guinea at an elevation of over
1500m. A large percentage of the 800kms
of road from Lae are dirt tracks with
gradients of over 20% and there are 99
bridge crossings on the route as well. The
maximum gross vehicle weight on a lot
of the bridges is limited to 60,000kg, so
with prime mover and trailer weights the
maximum cargo weight via road was low
by industry standards at around 25,000
kilos. Additionally, the road between
Lae and Hides has been subject to road
closures due to landslides, washouts and
other uncontrollable factors.
Over 7,000 loads have already travelled
this route. However, the Hides plant
also required a lot of large, delicate
and sensitive equipment in order to
commence operation and the poor quality
roads and restrictions between Lae and
the jobsite were deemed not suitable
to transport these materials. Another
transport solution was clearly required.
ExxonMobil recognised that to overcome
these challenges would require an
innovative logistics solution – and a lot of
‘thinking outside of the box’.

PNG LNG PROJECT
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‘For us, it was not just a commercial project but the chance to test ourselves again’
ExxonMobil contracted Volga-Dnepr
Airlines, the world’s largest transporter
of outsize and heavyweight air cargo,
which over more than 20 years had
demonstrated its unique ability to ‘make
the impossible possible’.
When teams of specialists from
ExxonMobil and Volga-Dnepr first
got together in 2008 to discuss the
project, one question dominated the
conversation: was it theoretically possible
to fly thousands of tonnes of large, heavy,
complex and sensitive equipment into
the remote Highlands of Papua New
Guinea to enable the building of a gas
conditioning plant?
The combined expertise and knowledge
of the two organisations established that
undertaking such a complex air logistics
task was indeed possible – but first they
had to build an airport.
For Volga-Dnepr, working on projects
some years in advance of performing
an actual flight operation is part and
parcel of its unique place in the world
of aviation. The size and design of big
pieces of high value industrial equipment,
aircraft components and space satellites
are often based on their ability to fit
into the airline’s fleet of giant Antonov
An-124 freighters because major global
corporations recognise the vital role
Volga-Dnepr plays in their supply chain.
In the first phase of their cooperation, a
joint team from ExxonMobil and Volga-
Dnepr travelled to Papua New Guinea
to evaluate four proposed locations
for a new Highlands airport. This was
subsequently reduced to two sites
following inspections and, ultimately, one
location in Komo based on Volga-Dnepr’s
study of load lists and route options.
Back in the UK, members of ExxonMobil’s
PNG LNG Project team met with the
airline to plan how many An-124 flights
would be required, which routes would
be used, the frequency of operations,
the length of the project and flight
programme, and the costs involved.
In 2010, work began on the new
Komo Airfield.
To be able to handle An-124 freighter
operations would require building Papua
New Guinea’s longest paved runway at
3,200m in length and 45m wide. Once
complete the new airport would be able
continued on page 12

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CASE STUDY
‘deugro and Volga-Dnepr Airlines
were brought together early on in
the project in putting together a
unique trailer loading and
off-loading concept to reduce
the overall ground handling
times for the aircraft’
continued from page 11
to welcome the world’s largest seriesproduced
cargo aircraft with its 73 metre
wingspan, maximum take-off weight of
392 tons and payload of up to 120 tonnes.
It would feed construction equipment
and materials virtually to the door of the
gas processing site through a series of
90-minute flights from Port Moresby.
The Soviet-built An-124 makes light
work of logistics projects well beyond the
capability of other commercial airliners.
In terms of cargo handling, the aircraft is
virtually self sufficient. Craneless loading
and offloading technology saves hours
and eliminates any additional costs arising
from the need for third party handling
equipment. In this case, reducing the time
the aircraft needed to spend on the ground
was essential to the one-flight-per-day
schedule set for the project.
Another key partner in the Hides project
was deugro, which was awarded the
contract for the international freight
forwarding and logistics package as well
as the Papua New Guinea in-country
marshalling facility in Port Moresby and
heavy-haul service package for delivery to
the Hides Gas Conditioning Plant – in total,
managing the delivery of some 72,500
metric tonnes.
Via the establishment of a purpose-built
marshalling yard facility at Jacksons
International Airport, deugro’s Port
Moresby office managed the inbound
customs clearance, storage and handling
of the heavy and outsize pieces of
equipment prior to their ultimate loading
onto the Antonov 124 aircraft for onwards
delivery to Komo.
In Komo, it was again deugro that was
responsible for receiving the heavy and
outsize equipment from the An-124 aircraft
and delivering the equipment over the final
25 kilometers to the plant.
Richard Jürgens, Project Manager for
deugro Projects (Australia) says: “A project
of this scale has never been attempted
within PNG. The infrastructure one
takes for granted in a developed Oil &
Gas environment was not present. This
meant a massive investment in additional
resources, skills and subsequent training
and infrastructure development was
needed, to up-scale the roads, bridges,
transportation equipment and network
to cope with the logistics demands of the
various contractors.
Route surveys, transport studies and
infrastructure analysis in respect to bridge
strength and capacity, road surfaces,
bends and inclines were conducted by
deugro’s transport engineering team more
than a year in advance to ensure that the
ultimate transport equipment utilized
remained the best fit to what essentially
became forever changing conditions.
”The remote and at times volatile location,
the lack of locally available support
equipment and technicians and adverse
weather conditions steered the logistics
approach, particularly from a heavy haul
and project logistics perspective, to one of
being completely self-reliant.
“This lent to establishing a fully competent
team of experienced operators familiar
with the risks of operating heavy transport
equipment in such harsh conditions,
to consistently ensure the delivery of
materials to the construction site day
after day.“
A key factor in the success of the logistics
project was the cooperation of the partners
from an early stage. Richard Jürgens
adds: “deugro and Volga-Dnepr Airlines
were brought together early on in the
‘The remote and at times volatile location,the lack of locally available
support equipment and technicians and adverse weather conditions steered the
logistics approach’

PNG LNG PROJECT
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‘A project of this scale has never
been attempted within PNG.
The infrastructure one takes for
granted in a developed Oil & Gas
environment was not present’
project in putting together a unique trailer
loading and off-loading concept to reduce
the overall ground handling times for the
aircraft, ensuring a quick turn-around time
of the An-124. Volga-Dnepr’s technical
capability and loading concepts were a key
factor in it winning the ‘airbridge’ contract
and deugro was able to compliment this
with our specialised hydraulic trailers
specifically imported into PNG to execute
the heavy haul scope of works for the
project.
“deugro’s Technical Engineering
Department worked closely with Volga-
Dnepr’s technical team to formulate a
modular hydraulic trailer-design providing
sufficient incline and deck strength to
successfully create a direct link between
the An-124 ramp and trailer, thereby
eliminating the need for additional ramps
and cranes which ultimately add to the
operational cost, safety risk and turnaround
time per flight.”
Additional work was conducted by the
airline to minimise the empty weight of the
An-124-100 aircraft, tooling and packaging
equipment to maximise the opportunities
offered by the freighter’s cargo capacity
and Volga-Dnepr also developed solutions
to ensure the appropriate maintenance of
aircraft at Port Moresby airport during
the project.
After five years of planning, Volga-Dnepr’s
first An-124 flight touched down on the
new runway at Komo Airfield on May
3rd 2013. A sense of great pride and
achievement was felt by everyone involved
in the project – but this was just the start of
an intensive flying programme.
Over the next 103 days, 88 Volga-Dnepr
An-124 cargo flights safely transported
6,000 tons of equipment and materials that
would help to turn an ambitious project
plan into a reality. For Volga-Dnepr, it was
mission accomplished.
Dennis Gliznoutsa, Vice
President, Development
at Volga-Dnepr Airlines,
said: “This project was
complex and an interesting
logistics challenge and
we are proud to have
worked in partnership
with our colleagues at ExxonMobil and
deugro. Papua New Guinea is a country
that has challenging climatic conditions,
including highlands with frequent fog. We
are proud to have successfully and safely
completed this project by overcoming all
of these difficulties and by once again
demonstrating our expertise in the safe
delivery of unique and outsize cargo. For
us it was not only a commercial project
but the opportunity to test ourselves again.
Participation in this project has also helped
us to strengthen our cooperation with
regular customers and to acquire potential
partners.”
The ‘airbridge’ supplied the main logistics
solution for the Hides Gas Conditioning
Plant in that it allowed the project to
deliver most of the major equipment
required to complete the project by
avoiding the 800km road between Lae
and the plant. The equipment transported
on the An-124-100s included the Main
Compressors, Gas Turbine Generators,
Pressure Vessels, Heat Exchangers and all
of the Equipment Rooms for the process
facility.
In 2014, ExxonMobil will deliver its first gas
supplies to consumers in Asia – proving
once again that by combining the best
human spirit, endeavour and engineering,
there is no logistics challenge that cannot
be overcome.