Back in February, our equipment team was working to prep our old sand screener to ship it to our affiliate farm, Cranberries Austral Chile (CAC).
Ernie, who was the lead on the project, put in a lot of time making the necessary repairs for easy maintenance when it gets down to Chile. “We want to make sure it’s in great shape for those guys,” he said at the time. “…Basically, we’re going over it and making sure everything is right and that it’s running well.” He also mentioned that actually getting it into the shipping container was going to be a project in itself, and he was absolutely right!
Coco Mercado says, “We did a lot of prep work. All the bigger stuff wouldn’t fit inside the container, so we had to disassemble all the big pieces and make absolutely sure all fluids were drained in order to pass through Customs.” Supervisor Carlos Baez says it took the entire day to disassemble everything, but it is about ready to go! “It’s going to be a tight fit, I can tell you right now,” he says. “But I took a lot of pictures as we were taking everything apart, so once it arrives they should be able to put it back together pretty easily.”
Facilities and Equipment Manager Louis Cantafio is pleased the project is just about wrapped up. “The biggest challenge was getting the conveyor off, but the worst is over,” he says. “Once it gets down there, CAC has the bigger challenge in putting it back together!” CAC, however, has been fantastically helpful about project details. “I thought I would need to research shipping companies, but they have people they deal with all the time and took care of all the transport logistics; it was great.” He’s pleased that this project is wrapping up so the team can turn their attention to some other big projects: in addition to sending some other equipment down to Chile with the screener, the team is working on several maintenance and building projects right here at home. “We’re doing a lot of work on the pump houses making sure they stay in compliance, we got the new Hydremas, we had some involvement in the camp reno, and then we’re pouring bases for new pump houses and rebuilding engines for the bog renovation project. We have a lot going on!”
“But ultimately, CAC is going to be able to increase their efficiency in processing sand, and that’s a job well done for us,” Louis says. “My team always does whatever it takes to hit our targets.”