The Demolition of Delimara Chimney

14.03.2019

Built in 1992, the Delimara 1 plan included two HFO boilers, two 60MW steam turbines as well as the 150-metre chimney made of reinforced concrete.  The chimney structure comprised a cylindrical concrete shield rising up more than 50 storeys. Inside the concrete structure, there were two 2.3 metre steel exhaust pipes that emitted the smoke produced by the oil-fired boilers. 

The dismantling started in the last quarter of 2017 with the lowering of these two steel pipes and all metal structures inside the chimney to dismantle them on the ground.  To demolish the outer structure, the contractors erected an auto-lifting platform on five steel columns all the way to the top.  Remote-controlled demolition robots were used to demolish the first 1.5 metres of the concrete walls. This process was repeated approximately 80 times until the chimney was lowered to 35 metres.

At this point, the platform was dismantled, and the remaining part of the stack was demolished using a high reach demolition excavator from ground level. The dismantling process was completed by August 2018, thus keeping track as was projected initially.