An exceptional road transport operation began at West Welding’s Teuva facility, as an LNG fuel tank designed and manufactured by West Welding was transported to the Port of Kaskinen. This was not a routine transport, but a carefully planned logistical operation in which scale and technical boundary conditions defined every detail. The LNG tank was designed and manufactured by West Welding for Meyer Turku’s ICON 5 cruise ship.
Exceptional scale of the LNG tank transport
The transport assembly was exceptionally large. The combined width of the tank, special trailers and transport structures was approximately 15 metres, the height approximately 14 metres, and the total weight around 500 tonnes. The transfer was carried out using two parallel, remotely controlled special trailers with a total of 144 wheels. The transport proceeded at walking speed, and the approximately 30-kilometre journey from Teuva to Kaskinen took around 15 hours.
A special transport of this scale is part of a broader whole that is taken into account already at the design stage. Transportability must be aligned with both manufacturing-related and logistical requirements. Route load-bearing capacity, curves, height restrictions and traffic arrangements determine how the transfer can be carried out safely. The transport route has been in the planning stages for about a year in collaboration with the Elinvoimakeskus and local municipalities. Due to the scale of the project, significant modifications have been made to the route, including widening roads and intersections, as well as burying power lines underground and laying submarine cables.
For West Welding, the transport was a moment in which the company’s core expertise – design, manufacturing, welding technology, and project management – became concretely visible to the public in an exceptional way.
