Team-BHP - Cranes: The other side of Mukesh Ambani's fleet

Couldn't help but share ! As a former member of the oil industry, I know all about Mukesh's side of RIL. Forget all the usual stuff he and RIL are known for.

Jamnagar is the world's largest oil refinery, and it takes massive machines for its upkeep. It's a mechanical jungle, and you will find things there - you won't find anywhere else.

I want to keep this simple and plain. Every day, everyone across the world wakes up to participate in the grand rat race. More money. More self development.

This requires energy. Lots and lots of it. Fuel for cars, gasoline, diesel for trucks. Mukesh is the other side of this story. He feeds it. And feeding it requires very special machinery.

a) ships from all across the world come loaded with crude oil. Mexico, Venezuela, Houston USA, Saudi Arabia
b) they dock at Reliance Industry's jetty at Jamnagar
c) they down massive pipelines to RIL's refinery
d) the refining process and distillation requires insane amounts of upkeep - things break things corrode. These are known as columns, stacks, trains, and capital expenditure is severe.
e) All this requires a battalion of cranes and crane operators

Your guide to the photos

(regular looking cranes - of Liebherrs, Terex make) These can do typical jobs requiring 50 tonne to 200 tonne lifts. You might see this during road construction on any normal highway.

Super heavy lifts - the machines are DEMAGS, GOTTWALDS, SARENS, and MAMMOETS: These are the ones capable of lifting 1200 tonnes. RIL's columns (the tall cylindrical towers) are used in distillation - each weighs 1000 tonnes to 500 tonnes. These are the "columns" that convert crude to diesel.

These are not representational pictures all are real. When Reliance is buying, everyone across the world lick their lips. Zoomlion - a Chinese crane company recently sold 50 cranes in one go to Reliance. The pictures are added. During the shipment, all you could see outside Mukesh's refinery was a convoy of cranes which were fresh off the ship from China.

Lastly - you see a pic of a ship - probably headed to Africa, Japan, USA or Europe.

By the way - Elon Musk who ?

Wow! This is a mechanical engineer’s dreamland! So much happens before we buy fuel at a street corner petrol station. And we don’t even realise it when we fill up our fuel tanks.

Also, makes me wonder if robotics can even play a part amidst such large cranes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by D33-PAC (Post 4342319)

By the way - Elon Musk who ?

Errr.. the dude who has set the ball rolling to kill oil (and thus such refineries!).

Quote:

Originally Posted by OrangeCar (Post 4342357)

Errr.. the dude who has set the ball rolling to kill oil (and thus such refineries!).

Refineries make plastics and everything from what's found in a car's dashboard to the material found in a plastic water bottle.

HDPE, PET, Polyester resin, poly olefins, butane, propane, PTA are all products of such refineries. Musk isn't going to kill any refinery any time soon. One of the biggest misconceptions is that the electric car means the end of the refinery. Maybe he heralded the rise of the electric car, but it's illogical to conclude that he or an electric car is the end of the oil refinery. In fact the world's largest oil refinery is currently being built by Africa' richest man in Nigeria. Crude oil refining isn't going anywhere soon.

Truth be told, Reliance Industries is expanding their refinery right now, the Jamnagar J3 project went live recently and Ambani has much more planned at the site.

Quote:

Originally Posted by D33-PAC (Post 4342319)

Maintaining the largest oil refinery is a feat in it self. However you being enamored with Mr. Ambani has no bearing on this feat. I myself belong to Oil/Gas industry and had the opportunity petrochemical complexes around the world.

The photographs do display this impressive feat. Thank you for sharing.