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The refinery is required to undergo regular inspections where parts of the plant are disassembled, inspected and replaced, if necessary. To ensure that downtime is limited and operations at the refinery are sustained, Ainscough has been appointed as the sole provider of mobile cranes and crawler cranes for all maintenance and project works throughout the year.
Situated close to the south bank of the Humber Estuary, Lindsey Oil Refinery processes approximately 10 million tonnes of crude oil per year, making it the UK’s third largest.
Ainscough had on average ten mobile telescopic cranes on site every day, ranging from 40 to 500 tonnes. These cranes included a 40 tonne mobile crane fitted with VarioBase®, an innovative system which enables cranes to operate in space-restricted locations for added flexibility.
As part of the £33 million two-month shutdown programme, the Ainscough team worked around-the-clock, 7 days a week. In addition to providing multiple units as part of our crane hire and contract lift operations, the Ainscough team also performed a number of further activities, such as individual lifts during the works, and remained on site permanently to give advice and expertise on all aspects of safety and planning.
The centre-piece of the programme was the installation of a new, £12 million distillation unit, which is used to heat crude oil in the first stage of its transformation into everyday fuel. The unit was delivered in two 118-tonne sections which were lifted into their new location using Ainscough’s 600 tonne crawler crane, a Terex CC 2800-1.
The installation will make the refining process more efficient and environmentally friendly and will save 20,000 tonnes of Co2 every year.
During our continued crane hire and contract lift operations at the Lindsey Oil Refinery site, we have had no reported accidents or incidents.
