SOME of the heaviest and longest loads ever to arrive in Hampshire are being turned into a new £70 million heart for Fawley refinery.

The components of a new catalytic cracker have been built at hi-tech factories all over the world, including part of the earthquake zone in India.

There, the plant that made the giant 1,000-tonne reactor had a roof torn off, but Fawley's project executive, Garth Lawrence, confirmed that no staff had been injured.

He said the reactor was this week lifted in three sections, all weighing more than 300 tonnes, onto the dockside at Fawley power station after being transferred from a cargo ship to a barge in Southampton Water.

Project manager Dave Khan said that after the reactor had made its final journey by road it would be slid at one metre per minute along a 162-metre skidway - a journey lasting almost three hours.

The reactor will then be connected to towers of up to 200ft, built in Antwerp and which recently arrived by road, and to components made in the UK, Germany, Italy, the USA and the Czech Republic.

Up to the turn of the year, about 100 contract workers were preparing the bases and some of the preparatory structures. That is now rising to 350 and will peak at about 1,000 in the autumn.

The cracker is replacing one that has been serving the refinery for almost 50 years.

Its new technology will also enable the plant to make high-quality products from the dirtier feedstocks and will also mean cleaner emissions.