This sure would be one great hitch hike. While most of us were bunkered down at home under remote work lockdown, 40 intrepid truck drivers were transporting 120 x Jord ACC tube bundles from the east coast of China 7,700 km across some of the most remote forests, deserts and steppes on earth.

Their destination was the northern coast of the Caspian Sea, where Kazakhstan Petrochemical Industries (KPI) is developing a propane dehydrogenation (PDH) and polypropylene (PP) plant. The map on the right sets out the route taken. A large section of the journey followed the fabled silk road of ancient times.

The ACCs steel structures were delivered by ship from Dubai and mechanical components were trucked from Germany through Russia. You can imagine the paperwork involved with this.

Our two ACCs on this order condense exhaust steam from steam turbine driven compressors. The biggest operating challenge is maintaining performance across extreme weather conditions. The minimum winter air ambient temperature is -38 deg C whereas the maximum summer ambient is 50 deg C.