SWISS forwarding giant Panalpina's heavylift division has enjoyed 20 per cent growth last year driven by the needs of oil and gas exploration worldwide, but particularly in Azerbaijan.

While the company works on 40 projects worldwide in the Middle East, Australia, Latin America and the US, a recent focus of concentration is BP's offshore oil project in Azerbaijan's area of the Caspian Sea.

Panprojects is one of the fastest growing areas of its business with 400 dedicated staff, said the company, adding that transport and logistics cost for a single industrial project is expected to cross the US$1 billion mark in the near future.

"Large projects are huge transport endeavours that require expert planning, monitoring and compliance - three areas where the company is experiencing growing success," said Panalpina.

Said Panprojects chief Chris Kent: "The importance of on-time delivery at large projects cannot be stressed enough. Delays at multi-million dollar projects mean excessive and avoidable cost."

Many large heavylift projects are in landlocked, isolated areas, which require road and rail upgrades to carry the loads, as well as seasonal, climate and even political changes. Moving unusual and oversized loads requires authorisation and customs clearance at several stages of a journey.

"We've spent years developing the people and processes that improve efficiency," Mr Kent said. "Our people around the world have the local expertise and the global support to establish new routes and continually develop better ways of working on a single project."

Panprojects was established in 2002 to directly address the logistics needs of the world's most ambitious industrial projects. The service creates tailor-made, end-to-end transport networks for each project.

Lately, Panalpina has been shipping components of the topside unit of an offshore oil platform in the Caspian Sea. The Azerbaijan platform was deployed for the Azeri-Chirag-Deepwater Gunashli field operated by BP.

The West Chirag platform project is handled by Panalpina under its agreement with BP in 2012 to develop the oil and gas industry's most efficient and cost effective supply chain for large-scale projects.