Volga-Dnepr delivers oil equipment to South Africa

An-124-100 and IL-76TD-90VD freighters from Volga-Dnepr Airlines’ fleet delivered more than 80 tonnes of oil and gas equipment to Cape Town, South Africa.

The An-124 flight carried five pipes from Singapore weighing 60 tonnes. The pipes were shipped to Singapore’s Changi Airport by truck and then placed onto airport dollies and towed to the aircraft for loading. The aircraft’s onboard cranes were used to load the pipes. The delivery was operated on behalf of logistics company UTI South Africa and was contracted under the Ruslan International An-124 joint venture.

Earlier, the urgent transportation of oil equipment from Stavanger, Norway, was organized by Volga-Dnepr onboard an IL-76TD-90VD aircraft. The shipment of two subsea risers was required to complete the fast repair of a broken semi-submersible drilling rig. This equipment was delivered on behalf of French broker ATS International.

“The fast delivery of the risers to Cape Town helped the oil and gas operation to resume production at the rig within a short timescale,” Clair Gunn, commercial executive at Volga-Dnepr, said. “We have a lot of expertise in meeting such urgent customer requests and in situations of extreme urgency when each day of interruption to production can result in substantial financial losses. We are always ready to provide customers with fast and effective solutions to support them in keeping their projects on track.”