June 28, 2019: Panalpina has transported four heat exchangers with a total weight of 47,210 kilogrammes from the US to Luanda, Angola for a deep-water oil platform.

The two smaller heat exchangers weighing 7,081 kilogrammes each were ready first and were securely packed and shipped out on May 7 from Houston, Texas via Panalpina's African Star air and ocean freight solution. The two larger exchangers, each weighing over 16 tonnes, had a delivery deadline of May 28.

This unique service is designed specifically to meet the stringent air freight delivery requirements of the oil and gas clientele in Congo and Angola. The multi-modal concept delivers freight direct to shore base along the coast, thus avoiding bottlenecks and long customs delays often experienced when importing via conventional methods.

Matthias Frey, global head of the Panalpina Charter Network said, "With only seven days to deliver such fragile and critical components, the trust the customer put in our team was immeasurable."

Panalpina's engineering team, along with the Atlas Air loads team continuously redesigned the shipping skid and pallet tie-down in the 10 days prior to ensure safe and compliant transport. The planning involved ensuring teams are able to complete the maintenance tasks in the needed timeframe. The planned maintenance for the customer's platform in Angola was entirely dependent on the arrival of the heat exchangers from a supplier in Louisiana.

On May 19, Panalpina representatives were on-site at the supplier facility before sunrise to begin packaging the units, with the truck heading for Huntsville in the evening. The cargo arrived in Huntsville on May 21 and flew by B747-8F on May 22. The aircraft en route to Liege Airport in Belgium, arriving in the early hours with Panalpina staff monitoring the transfer for the flight to Luanda. On May 24, all items have been transferred to the aircraft onto trucks via onsite cranes in Luanda for transport to the Sonils dock.

The customer supply vessel picked from up the heat exchangers and took them to the platform for installation on May 26.