Why Relocate?

As part of the strategy implemented by the Guangzhou Government, the Pearl River Beer Group has undertaken the relocation of its brewing capacity from the center of the Guangzhou to Nansha.

Look back at Pearl River Beer Group in Guangzhou.

In 1983, construction started on Guangzhou Pearl River Brewery located in Modiesha, with first brew being achieved in July 1985. Modiesha was named because of the landscape in the area in ancient times was shaped like a disc which had been polished by water. This area was originally the base district for many light industries in Guangzhou, and a number of enterprises have set up factories and facilities.

In recent years the rapid development of Guangzhou, has seen this region change from a remote and isolated zone on the northern banks of the Pearl River to a downtown area with countless villas and commercial establishments.

This region near to the Pearl River has become a new iconic tourist area for Guangzhou city, and has been transformed into a Pati Beer Cultural Creative Zone, sharing brilliant lights across the river to the new city of Pearl River and Haixinsha. Linking up with the Guangzhou tower, the Asian Consulate and Pazhou international exhibition center.

The Project – Relocation of Pearl River Brewery

At the end of 2016, 1.3 Million Tons of production will have been relocated from Guangzhou to Nansha as the new base for the Pearl River Beer Group. In 2014 Lehui was engaged to work with Pearl River Beer Group to assist with the relocation of their production facility in Guangzhou. Initially the project was planned over three years whilst production continued at both sites, however with Lehui's assistance this has been achieved in only two without production interruption and releasing significant benefits. In October 2014, the first batch of production was successfully relocated with 300,000 tons being moved to Nansha with the remaining planned over the next years. Lehui working closely with Pearl River Beer Group completed this highly complex and large scale project, including what some call an industrial miracle of relocating of 600m3 large scale fermentation tank without affecting their integrity As the works near completion, the new site is seeing utilization of equipment up to 70% and taking the opportunity to improve the facility with use of new technology to create an intelligent factory.

Highlight: Relocation in synch with Production

The challenges of relocation, using safe management approaches and the skills of highly trained operatives, Lehui were able to dismantle almost 70 sets of 600m3 large scale fermenters.

After dismantling the units are shipped from the site to their new location, crossing the busy Binjiang road and the Sightseeing light rail in Guangzhou, before being safely loaded on board.

The Nansha base of the Pearl River Beer Group has been carrying out “Production synchronized with installation”.

Scope of the Project

The scope of the project for Lehui was to relocate 1.3 Million tons of brewing capacity from their existing location to Nansha. This comprised the whole process from Raw Materials handling through to Filling. Lehui relocated the raw materials handling systems, cold wort preparation, yeast systems, fermentation, filtration, bright beer and CIP. Everything carried out in a manner so as not to significantly affect the production capabilities.

Lehui was appointed as the turnkey supplier to Pearl River Beer Group, and as such undertook the complete role from design, new equipment purchasing, manufacturing, relocation, installation, commissioning and training. Lehui using their experience in the brewing industry and working closely with Pearl River Beer Group, to ensure that the best technologies and cost effective solutions were combined.

Engineering Upgrades and Renovation

As the brewery has been operation for a number of years, much of the equipment to be relocated had been in use for more than 10 years. Lehui using it's experience in manufacturing was able to renovate this equipment, taking care of the existing systems and instrumentation and restore the condition. Where necessary replacing old technology with updated and improved systems.

Where renovation was not practical or not suitable, Lehui carried out design and process matching activities to identify new/replacement equipment to be integrated into the system. As part of the project Lehui also worked with Pearl River Beer Group, to upgrade the automation systems for the plant.

Heat Energy Recovery System of Mash tun Relocation

The huge tanks were transported by waterway to maintain their integrity despite many challenges during the process of moving ,placing, loading, transporting, unloading, installing and so on. Thus LEHUI has completed removal task successfully.

Relocation – Lehui Advantages

As the brewing industry in China grows and matures, so the pressure on the breweries themselves increases to relocate to newer facilities located out of town.

The scale of the engineering involved in undertaking these works is enormous and the required skill and experience to undertake without affecting production capacity means often the risk is too high for this to be done. Lehui has the skills and experience, and with this most recent project can demonstrate their expertise in working closely with the Client to carry out this work with minimal impact to production, with Pearl River Beer Group already achieving capacity ahead of schedule and receiving substantial benefits.

Removal of Existing Glass Bottling Line

Relocation – Next Project

Lehui's demonstrated skills and experience in relocating existing plant and equipment has been instrumental in securing the next project. When Carlsberg were looking to relocate their Dali plant to Yibin City, the experience of Lehui and their recent successful works on relocation was one of the considerations.