Floating capacity

“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Martin Brody came up with this iconic one-liner response to a scary shark in the movie Jaws, but boat sizes have been developing at a rapid pace since the Second World War and this, as Sanjeev Mathur of Bedeschi East, Dubai comments, has proved to be an issue for ports.

“The growth in vessel sizes has witnessed a rapid development since the Second World War but port development has not been able to keep pace with it. Vessel sizes have increased because of economy of scale – i.e. the larger the vessel size the lower the per ton transportation cost. Port development unfortunately has lagged behind mainly because of a high gestation period and a high development cost” Transhipment, while not a new development, offers a solution that is enjoying a renaissance.

Says Mr Mathur: “The only way to overcome the problem of the bottleneck is offshore transhipment. Many kinds of transhipment devices have been devised and deployed in various areas, mainly for coal and iron ore handling.”

We have transhipment loading markets equipped with self-unloaders and/or K4 Heavy Duty cranes,” says MacGregor Bulk Shiptype sales director, Alvis Wu. “Deploying a transloader barge or service means a port can accept calls of bigger ships where the port is not suitable (for example, draft, length or port facility limits) or there is congestion in harbours which is quite common in the Far East. Ports can save a lot of cost as they do not need to upgrade land base facility. Transhipping is a normal solution in developing areas such as South East Asia, India and Africa.”

Tools of the trade

Mr Mathur explains that a classical transhipper essentially comprises two main components: the cranes and the cargo handling & delivery systems. “Their application varies from the usage of the system – i.e. if the system is intended to carry out offshore loading of cargo from barges into ocean going vessels (OGVs) or discharging the cargo from OGVs into barges.

“For a loading system, the cranes need not have a very big outreach because they have to pick up cargo from barges which are relatively smaller in size and berthed alongside. The cargo handling system instead should be equipped with a shiploader with sufficient air draft and outreach to deliver cargo into the holds of large OGVs. The reverse is applicable for discharging systems where the cranes, which are supposed to pick up cargo from larger OGVs have large airdraft and outreach and the cargo handling system has a smaller barge loader sufficient to deliver cargo into barges, instead of a shiploader.”

Transhipment offers a number of benefits for ports. “Ports can accept more ships and bigger ships without investing too much to have permanent facilities,” explains Mr Wu.

Mr Mathur believes that transhippers have a distinct advantage over shore terminals because they operate without the need for extensive dredging to enable large vessels to come alongside. In addition, transhipment solutions are generally not cost prohibitive. Dredging is an environmentally sensitive issue that can create havoc with marine fauna in addition to being extremely expensive – something to avoid if at all possible.

“Moreover and most importantly,” he says, “the implementation time of the floating terminal is much shorter as compared to the shore terminal and floating solutions are environmentally safe too.”

Indonesia’s solution

“While Indonesia lacks in the shore based infrastructure to load large vessels at berth, it has been blessed with a large numbers of rivers which connect the hinterland to the sea front. A bulk of the coal exports from Indonesia takes place from the coal mine to the end users through the river route. After the coal is mined, it is then loaded onto barges that then transport it directly to the various loading facilities either shore-based or offshore.”

He adds that there are various kinds of offshore loading facilities presently operating in Indonesia. “These floating facilities can broadly be classified into three different kinds: floating cranes which are single or twin cranes mounted on pontoons; floating transfer units – cranes mounted on pontoon working with a combination of cargo handling system comprising of hoppers, conveyors and ship loaders; and floating terminals – large floating devices with floating buffer storage.”

Bedeschi has implemented six of the best operating transhippers in Indonesia, being Mara, Zeus, Princess Chloe, Vittoria, Bulk Celebes and Apollo. While Mara is a panamax vessel converted into a floating storage and transfer station fitted with four cranes and two shiploaders, the others are pontoons mounted with two cranes each and one shiploader each in combination with an array of hoppers, feeders and conveyors systems.

Mr Mathur gives another example of Goa in India, where iron ore is being exported exclusively by offshore transhipment. “Here too the iron ore is mined in the hinterland and is brought to the sea in barges, where it is loaded directly into OGV by the use of various transhipment devices.”

Three transhippers have been implemented by Bedeschi in Goa: Shatixa, Royal Sesa and Chowpatlal.

As a cargo handling solution that saves both time and money, transhipment is a worthy one for dry bulk ports and one that looks set to stay for the future. “As long as bulk shipping rates recover, transhipment loading is still a promising business in the long term,” concludes Mr Wu.

LARGE SCALE OPTIONS FOR TRANSHIPPING

The arrival of the world’s two largest transhippers –Ore Fabrica and Ore Sossego – has propelled dry bulk transhipment forward.

At 284,480 dwt and 256,147 dwt respectively, these two beasts are the biggest and most powerful floating terminals ever constructed.

Following the introduction of Ore Fabrica in Subic Bay to discharge iron ore from Valemaxes, Vale appointed Bedeschi to provide cargo handling equipment for Ore Sossego. “To take advantage of the economy of scale, the client had ordered vessels in excess of 400,000 tons dwt capacity, known as Valemaxes, to transport iron ore from Brazil to the Far East,” explains Bedeschi East’s Sanjeev Mathur.

“Since these huge vessels could not be accommodated in most of the ports, there was a need for a transhipment device, which could transfer the iron ore from the Valemax vessels into more manageable capesize vessels.” The transhippers are fitted with five Liebherr cranes with each one feeding a separate 50 m3 hopper located adjacent to them.

“Cargo is extracted from the hoppers by variable speed drive belt feeders, which deliver the cargo on a longitudinal conveyor belt. A combination of cross conveyor and another longitudinal conveyor then leads the iron ore to shiploaders capable of delivering cargo at 5,000 tons per hour to the shuttle vessel’s holds. Thus the cargo transfer is done in a triple banking operation, with the FTS in the middle and the Valemax and shuttle vessel on either side. In case there is no shuttle vessel available then the cargo is loaded into the holds of the transhippers, using the same shiploaders, to be retrieved by the cranes later on.”