JOHANNESBURG - Dutch company Mammoet, which specialises in engineered heavy lifting and transporting heavy objects, said on Wednesday it had played a key part in Burkina Faso's ongoing efforts to increase electricity access from 20 percent to 80 percent by 2021, by transporting heavy equipment from neighbouring Ghana.
As part of its national plan for economic and social development, the West African country is upgrading its Kossodo thermal power plant to provide an additional 50 megawatts of capacity.
In a statement, Mammoet said it had been contracted to undertake the complex land transportation of components from the Port of Takoradi in Ghana to Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou, covering a total distance of 1,400 km.
The power plant expansion equipment consisted of three 325t engines, three 59t generators, two 80t transformers and three 16t turbo chargers, with lengths ranging up to 13 metres, heights of up to 6.6 metres and widths of up to six metres.
"Never before were cargo of these sizes and weights transported over such a distance in West Africa, as the local infrastructure was not built to move such cargo dimensions and weights," Mammoet said.
"The resulting maximum transport height of around eight meters meant the project team had to lift over 1,000 overhead power lines during the transport, in both Ghana and Burkina Faso."
It said the Covid-19 pandemic had posed an additional challenge, as both countries closed their borders to curb its transmission, thereby restricting cross border movement.
Efficient planning and flexibility to adapt to circumstances had however now seen the cargo delivered to the Kossodo project site.
Once completed, the Kossodo power plant aims to increase national generation capacity by almost 20 percent, doubling the number of customers to one million.
- African News Agency (ANA)