A few months ago, I had the pleasure of helping Matt Givot document one of the largest cranes in the world move over a million pounds of steel around a busy refinery. It was quite a sight to see.

The Chevron El Segundo refinery undertook this huge project to replace six massive coke drums, each of which are 100 feet long and 30 feet wide and weigh over 600,000 pounds. To replace these drums, the structure housing them had to be cut open, and the top, weighing over 1 million pounds, had to be lifted off in one piece. In all, this project took over three years to complete due to the significant logistics involved and all the safety precautions that had to be considered. I was lucky enough to be there for the removal and recapping of the top of the structure, watching this massive crane move over a million pounds with ease – with cameras rolling.

Chevron has released the finished video that walks through the whole process, from the building of the crane to the removal and replacement of each of the drums and the top of the structure housing them. Check it out below, and check out a quick and fun 15 second edit of some of what I captured there on my Instagram.

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