Eight LNG production modules were fabricated at the COOEC yard in Qingdao, China, for the Ichthys LNG Project, an offshore-Australia gas development. The first and heaviest — approximately 90 by 48 by 33.5 metres, around 5,200 tonnes — had to move from its fabrication position to an ocean-going barge using self-propelled modular transporters.

The commercially interesting decision here isn't the tonnage. It's that no single SPMT provider at the yard had enough equipment on hand, so the transport combined fleets from three separate companies, with Mammoet overseeing the operation — a coordination problem as much as an engineering one.

8
Modules total
5,200 t
Heaviest module
300
Combined SPMT axle lines
90×48×33.5 m
Module dimensions
3
Equipment providers pooled
Stage 1
Onshore module fabrication
The module was built at the COOEC yard in Qingdao as one of eight LNG production modules for the Ichthys Project, part of an onshore modular-fabrication strategy intended to reduce offshore assembly work.
Stage 2
Combined SPMT fleet assembly
Because no single provider had sufficient axle lines available at the yard, the transport pooled 160 axle lines from Zhejiang Lida, 80 from COSCO, and 60 from Sinotrans — 300 in total — with Mammoet overseeing the operation, an arrangement that concentrates coordination risk at the interface between the three equipment fleets rather than within any one of them.
Stage 3
Load-out and ocean transport
The module was rolled onto the ocean-going barge Finesse for shipment from Qingdao to Darwin, Australia, where it was integrated into the Ichthys LNG onshore processing facility.
The interface problem, not the tonnage

Combining SPMT fleets from three separate equipment providers under one overseeing operator is a genuinely different risk profile from a single-contractor move: coordinating equipment configuration, operating procedures, inspections, and crews across three providers created an additional interface problem beyond supporting the module's weight — though the published account doesn't establish that this required synchronising technically distinct control systems.

The move combined a 5,200-tonne load with the interface challenge of coordinating SPMT equipment supplied by three providers.

The Ichthys module transport is a useful counterpoint to single-contractor SPMT moves elsewhere on this site: the commercial and technical risk sits in interface coordination between equipment providers, not purely in the scale of the load itself.

For further reading, see Erection Engineering for Modular Installation and What are SPMTs?, which cover the equipment and coordination logic behind this transport.

Note: the figures in this case study are drawn from trade-press coverage that traces to a single 2015 equipment-provider account. Where independent, non-equipment-supplier confirmation of the detailed axle-line allocation could not be located, this is noted for transparency.

Related case studies: Wuhan Modular Hospitals · 461 Dean Street · citizenM Bowery

Sources: Offshore Energy — reporting Scheuerle's account: the 5,200-tonne first module (90 × 48 × 33.5 m) moved on 300 SPMT axle lines contributed by Zhejiang Lida (160), COSCO (80) and Sinotrans (60); MarineLink — described as the heaviest load then transported on SPMTs in China. This transport took place in January 2015. Module weights across the eight-module programme are published in the region of 5,000 tonnes each.