On April 13, on the right bank of the Taipingxi waterway in Maoping Town, Zigui County, in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, at the construction site of the dam-top wharf project of the Three Gorges Hub Jiangnan Refined Oil Dam-Crossing Project, with the smooth pouring of the 5# valve chamber platform pier, the "first pier" of the control project of the Three Gorges Refined Oil Dam-Crossing Wharf has laid a solid foundation for the rapid advancement of subsequent works.

"This pier is 30 meters long and 15 meters wide, with a total concrete volume of 1,300 cubic meters and a maximum single pour of 840 cubic meters. We dare not be careless at all," said Master Zhang, a worker responsible for on-site pouring, wiping sweat from his forehead, with undried cement still on his gloves. "To speed up progress, we have adopted a two-shift system and work around the clock, hoping to complete the milestone task on schedule and lay a solid foundation for subsequent construction."

As a key project in the "14th Five-Year Plan" for Comprehensive Transportation Development of Hubei Province, the Three Gorges Refined Oil Dam-Crossing Wharf carries the important mission of breaking the shipping bottleneck of the Three Gorges and ensuring regional energy security. Li Mengkai, deputy chief engineer of the project department, introduced: "The biggest challenges in construction are technical control and efficiency assurance. In view of the construction characteristics of the pier, the team, after multiple scheme comparisons, adopted the hoop bracket construction process. To prevent the hoop from slipping, we conducted preloading tests in advance and added stiffening plates below the hoop to improve the safety factor. Surveyors were present throughout to monitor and ensure that the pier has no settlement or deformation. Up to now, about 70% of the pile foundation work in the project's pipe gallery area has been completed, and about 30% of the permanent steel casing construction for the berthing dolphins has been completed."

The Three Gorges Hub Jiangnan Refined Oil Dam-Crossing Project has a total investment of about 6.7 billion yuan and consists of five sub-projects: the downstream wharf and oil depot, the long-distance pipeline, and the upstream oil depot and wharf. It is designed with an annual throughput capacity of 5.8 million tons. The project adopts a "water-pipeline-water" intermodal transport model. Once completed, refined oil from the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River can be unloaded at the downstream wharf, transported through dedicated pipelines to the upstream oil depot, and then loaded onto ships for transport to the Sichuan-Chongqing region. This can effectively release the one-way general cargo lockage capacity of 15 million tons per year of the Three Gorges ship lock. The project is scheduled to be completed as a whole in December 2027.

Source:Hubei Daily