Vopak contacted Visser & Smit Hanab with the task laying a subterranean pipeline bundle between Vopak Terminal Botlek (Welplaatweg) and Vopak Terminal TTR (Torontostraat). The project required a bundle of 7 pipes to be installed by means of a 920 metre long horizontal directional drilling (HDD).
Drilling at a depth of 50 metres, the HDD crossed the Botlek Central Channel, the Welplaatweg an existing Vopak tank pit and adjacent railway.
The pipeline bundle was welded, tested, coated and compiled to form a compact bundle at the fabrication site on Professor Gerbrandyweg during the final months of 2015. The bundle was subsequently transported in its entirety from Professor Gerbrandyweg to the exit point, the location at the terminal where the pipeline bundle was being pulled into the previously created HDD borehole, this route covered a distance of 1,500 metres. The highest point of the over bend to facilitate the bundle to enter the HDD borehole was 13 metres above ground level!
The successful installation of the pipeline was completed by mid-January 2016.
Visser & Smit Hanab subsequently carried out further surface pipe work at both terminals.
[Photos Titus Blom/Vopak]