The 943.4km ‘Bright Path’ project in southeastern Kazakhstan supports the Belt and Road Initiative and will contribute to making the country the preferred cross-continental transit hub in Central Asia.
The unique containerised design of Lintec’s CSM asphalt plants has provided one of China’s largest contractors, CITIC Construction with several important benefits over the course of its major road rehabilitation projects in southeastern Kazakhstan.
With five Lintec CSM4000 plants now operating in the region, transporting these large asphalt plants to the job sites was the first hurdle to overcome. It was however made much easier thanks to their main modules being conveniently built within ISO certified shipping containers. The plant’s components do not just fit in the container, they are in-built within the container which is 100% ISO certified.
As a result, when the first two plants were shipped out to the Taldykorgan~ Ust-Kamenogorsk and Usharal-Dostyk (TKU~UD) road improvement project in 2018, Lintec could send the plants by rail for the very first time. With its trademark yellow containers, the train left the Lintec factory near Shanghai, China, heading towards the customer in the landlocked Central Asian nation, a great improvement from the traditional road freight or sea transit methods.
The Lintec team also customised the containers with a variety of protective measures for the journey, such as secure packaging, ensuring the equipment’s safety and eliminating the risk of theft or vandalism.
Once the containers were unloaded, their modular construction made installation faster, cheaper and far more convenient than other conventional plants.
“Among the large-capacity asphalt plants, the Lintec CSM4000 offers the fastest erection and relocation times,” says Tony Liu, CEO, Lintec & Linnhoff China. “There’s no need for concrete foundations because their flat, rigid surface area ensures high stability on suitably compacted soil. All you need to do is to plug-and-play thanks to the pre-assembly and testing works that is done at the factory.”
Against the wind
In addition to a neat industrial appearance, the containerised design concept also provided each plant with much-needed protection from the harsh elements of the windswept Kazakh terrain.
“Whether they were faced with rain, snow or sandstorms, bad weather conditions have had no impact on the equipment encased inside ‘Big Yellow’ (the nickname given to the plants),” explains Liu. “This has greatly extended their life and performance, while also reducing the need for maintenance.”
The same protective structure also provides security advantages, with just a single, lockable, access point in the design. Once access is granted, the walkways and staircases provide fast and convenient maintenance access to all levels.
As the second largest capacity model of the range, the CSM4000 boasts an impressive output of 320 tonnes of hot mix asphalt per hour, in batch sizes of 4,000kg. This met the contractor’s need for plants that could produce high quantities of hot-mix asphalt consistently.
“In addition to the high productivity, a key factor in CITIC’s decision to purchase the Lintec CSM4000 asphalt plant was the reliable German design and our Miprotek M4 operating system which allows for partial or full automation of production. The recipe can be specified and changed at any time, or remain perfectly consistent – with the customer always in full control,” adds Liu.
Crossing continents
As a crucial part of Kazakhstan’s ‘Bright Path’ project, the TKU~UD improvement scheme covers the 180km Usharal-Dostyk (A7 Highway) port road in the Almaty region. This is in addition to the 763.4km Taldykorgan~Ust-Kamenogorsk (A3 Highway) section in the nearby, newly created Zhetysu region. The A7 Highway will be constructed to Kazakhstan II road standards, with a roadbed width of 15m providing two lanes for two-way traffic, while 53.445km of the A3 Highway is expected to adopt the Kazakhstan I-b road standard, with a 25.5m roadbed width catering for four lanes of two-way travel.
With a total length of 943.4km including alterations and new sections, the new highways will allow for designated speeds of up to 120km/h. This would provide an important gateway for connectivity between China, Kazakhstan and surrounding countries when the job is completed in 2023.
Embracing China’s Belt and Road Initiative in support of its goal of becoming Central Asia’s largest business and transit hub, Kazakhstan invested about $30 billion in infrastructure development, transport and logistics assets and competence by April 2019. By spanning almost 3,000km east to west, and reducing the number of national border controls, the country offers easier access to Europe and the Caspian nations. It is thus set to recoup this investment quickly, potentially receiving $5 billion annually in commercial transit fees.
