Roben Manufacturing Inc., an internationally recognized manufacturing company located in Lakewood, has shipped a Bio-Refining column that is 98 inches (over 8 feet) in diameter and 150 feet long to a specialty chemical company in Brazil. The shipment left Lakewood on June 15 on a specialized transport truck with 42 tires that went through toll booths in 11 states to Houston, Texas, where a shipping channel is located that could handle this type of cargo.
The Bio-Refining column could not be shipped from marine terminals at Newark or Baltimore because these ports have length limitations on handling this type of shipment, which weighed 125,000 pounds and was made from a very expensive alloy (904L) to avoid corrosion. Roben’s lift capacity is 200 tons and some of its heaviest shipments have been delivered to places, such as the Gulf Coast and Tennessee. Recently Roben shipped two of the largest 80-ton heat-exchangers manufactured by the company to a Delaware refinery.
The transportation “permitting” was very complex for the Bio-Refining column and they required a police escort. The massive column first traveled from Lakewood to Route 70 West to 206 South. Kelly Wyrough, a director at Roben, said, “They will travel as far as West Virginia before they have to pull over because an escorted load can’t travel nights or weekends. From Houston it will be loaded on a special freight ship for Brazil.”
[TLS-50/TLS-CCP]