Vanguard Completes Large Contract In
Eastern Cape

Vanguard has completed a contract that involved the construction of portions of a new particle board plant for leading particle board and laminate manufacturer, PG Bison, in Ugie in the Eastern Cape. This is one of South Africa’s largest particle board plants. The project was awarded in January 2007 and work began on-site in March.
 
The scope of work covered the installation of a 150t drying drum, an energy plant, and the outside area of the plant. This area includes screw and chain conveyors, walking floor, debarking system, chipping and flaking line, as well as the installation of silos.

Vanguard General Manager, Andrew Nordengen says that the entire project was completed within six and a half months.
 
“We kept to our schedule and had a host of skilled personnel on-site such as welders, boiler makers, mechanical fitters, pipe fitters and engineers. There were certain challenges to consider, mainly related to the cold weather, but the project progressed well and the three aspects to the installation were completed concurrently.”
 
The drum, used for drying wood chips, was collected from Durban Harbour in six sections with the heaviest part weighing 30t. Vanguard offloaded, assembled, lined up and welded the parts together before lifting the drum and placing it on trunnion wheels 4m off the ground.
 
“In order to achieve this we used our 600t and 400t hydraulic gantries, working in conjunction, to rig the drum into its final position. The gantry rails were placed on one metre high stands, while two 13m header beams were placed one metre above the header plates on top of 15m header beams. This additional height ensured that we were able to lift the top of the drum to the required 11,5 metres,” says Nordengen.

Installation of a 150t drying drum using 400t and 600t hydraulic gantries

The second component of the project involved the construction of an energy plant that uses scrap wood and dust as fuel to create the hot air required in the dryer drum and to heat the thermal oil for the press. The plant consists of 500t of equipment, including 100t of structural steel, 250t of heavy components, and 150t of ducting and thermal oil piping.

Energy plant – Vanguard completed the construction comprising 500t of equipment

Nordengen notes that the construction of the energy plant included the installation of numerous heavy components, including two 50t stepgrates, a 21t combustion room, a thermal oil tank weighing 20t, two economiser units, the heaviest weighing 32.8t, as well as a 35t turbix.

Vanguard utilised its specialised staff and equipment to install chain conveyors, screw conveyors and a bucket elevator as part of the plant’s outside area

The last part of the project saw Vanguard installing chain conveyors, screw conveyors and a bucket elevator. These components form the outside area of the plant and are used for moving various materials around the plant. Included in this outside area was the installation of screens, flakers, chipper, grinders, shredder, walking floors, debarking line and log feeder. Vanguard also assembled storage silos that stand up to 30m high.

“Our scope for this portion of the project included the complete mechanical commissioning, as well as the loading, transporting, offloading and de-stuffing of containers,” says Nordengen.
 
“This task required considerable planning to get the 160 containers and 100 break bulk loads to site in the order that they were needed and used. At the height of operations we were de-stuffing 29 containers a day, a task that was facilitated by our Freight and Transportation Management division.”
 
Nordengen concludes that Vanguard managed 77 people on site, a number that almost doubled since the project began. “The calibre of skilled people that were on-site, as well as Vanguard’s host of specialised equipment, including gantries, cranes, forklifts and cherry pickers, ensured that the project was successfully completed within the necessary time frame.”