The first two turbines were loaded in Sweden in April of this year. They were manufactured at the Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery plant in Finspang. They weighed a total of 170 tons. They were loaded onto a heavy lift vessel in the port of Norrköping. From there, they began their 14,000-kilometer sea voyage to the port of Arica in Chile. All of the equipment, including turbines, heat recovery steam generators and generators, arrived safely at the port of destination.

After unloading in Arica, the Siemens equipment was transported by road to the power plants in Bolivia. Special trucks were used to transport all the material over a distance of more than 1,800 kilometers to their destinations. GEODIS will handle a total of 94 heavy lifts of around 160 tons each by the planned completion of the project in April 2019. The poorly developed road network between Chile and Bolivia, the rough terrain and the extreme weather conditions are some of the biggest challenges that the GEODIS team will have to face when carrying out this project.

Peter Anetsberger, GEODIS Regional Segment Leader for Power at Industrial Projects in Europe, explains: "Thismission involves a number of challenges that our experts have to overcome. The delivery window for this project is very tight, and our teams have to process a large number of shipments from Germany, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Italy, Indonesia, Brazil and China. We also had to carry out road works on the transit route through the Andes. Despite these constraints, we are confident that we will overcome these challenges and achieve the targets set by Siemens."

In total, GEODIS will transport 14 industrial gas turbines, 11 steam turbines and other equipment intended for the conversion of the three power plants for the planned combined cycle operation. As a result of this complex conversion project, Siemens plans to increase the power generation capacity of Bolivia's national grid by 66 percent, or more than one gigawatt. The project should help to provide the local population with a reliable supply of electricity in the future and create a basis for possible electricity exports to neighboring countries.

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