FEATURE I BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING
RAM Spreader loading
a vessel with iron ore.
Seabulk’s semi submersible transshipper. It is
now in operation for Berau Coal in Indonesia.
Maritime trio dominates
transshipment for miners
Three shipping and maritime groups appear to be wrapping up the majority of
transshipment activity among Australia’s miners. AJM’s Mike Foley spoke to senior
representatives of CSL, Sea Transport Corporation and Brightwater Seabulk.
B
ulk commodity junior miners
that sprouted all over Australia during
the last decade are now itching to
start exporting. They are loath to miss soaring
commodities prices but wait endlessly for
large-scale shared infrastructure to be built.
The juniors are predominantly prospective
producers of iron ore, but also coal, bauxite
and various bulk mineral concentrates.
Frustrated by the glacial pace of port development, and baulking at the huge sums of
capital involved anyway, more and more
miners are investigating alternatives, such as
transshipment. For inspiration they are looking
to systems in place in Indonesia, India, Canada
and, in Australia, at sites like Whyalla with
OneSteel, and Karumba with Century Zinc.
Most eager are companies contemplating
projects in new provinces with little existing
infrastructure, such as the Kimberley, the Gulf
of Carpentaria, mid-west Western Australia,
and South Australia in general.
Prospective proponents range from iron ore
minnows contemplating a few million tonnes
per year to substantial operations like Citic
52
JULY / AUGUST 2011
Pacific’s Sino Iron project and, at an earlier
stage, Cape Alumina’s Bauxite Hills project.
One of the first juniors to jump on board
was IronClad Mining, which with Sea
Transport, is currently developing a barge and
transshipment operation. This will be close to
IronClad’s mine site on the western side of the
Spencer Gulf in South Australia.
IronClad’s alternative was to transport its
ore a vast distance overland to the only suitable, and available, deepwater terminal which
is located in Adelaide.
Over on the Gulf’s eastern edge, transhipping has enabled OneSteel’s 6mtpa operation
to outgrow the capacity of its onshore terminal at Port Augusta. Since 2004 the company
and CSL Australia have loaded deep draft
Capesize bulk carriers offshore.
Sea Transport
Stuart Ballantyne, managing director of
Sea Transport Corporation, said the company
had a history in transshipping before coming
to Australia.
“Sea Transport has 20 years of experience
in bulk feeders and self-dischargers. In 1991
Sea Transport designed the world’s first no
ballast bulk carrier Deepwater … In 2008,
the Sea Transport 5,200 dwt self-discharging
barge Wunma [for MMG’s Century mine]
was the only bulk carrier abandoned in a
cyclone that actually survived.”
The transshipment system on offer in
Australia from Sea Transport has a relatively
short lead time. Ballantyne said “a feeder
barge you can get in 11 months” and it takes
“up to 16 months” to build a floating harbour
transshipper (FHT).
“The FHT comes in Handymax, Supramax
and Capesize versions. The Handymax FHT
has 30,000 tonnes of storage and capacity
of 7mtpa; the Panamax size 50,000 tonnes
storage and 12mtpa capacity; the Capesize
100,000 tonnes storage and 20mtpa.”
As with any transshipment system, the
first contact with product is on land. Sea
Transport uses a negative pressure shed,
sized between 5-10,000 tonnes. A wet dock
is attached, which includes patented stern
loading vessels with capacities ranging from
3-6,000 tonnes.
Loading vessels are shallow draft, meaning
the harbour required to house the terminal can
be small and shallow with four metres depth.
Ballantyne described the loading process:
feeder vessels, of 2,000 to 6,000 tonne
capacity, back into the shed for loading;
they then sail out to the FHT, and back
into a reclaimer system inside it, which
strips the feeders.
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AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING
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BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING I FEATURE
(top left) Seabulk’s Goan Pride transshipment vessel. (bottom left) The Goan Pride can unload at 4,000tph.
(above) The Goan Pride, seen here loading iron ore onto a Panamax vessel in Goa, India.
t
FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
“If there is no bulk carrier alongside it
stacks into the FHT. If the ship is there, the
product goes directly from the feeder into the
bulk carrier.” Sea Transport’s transshipper
loads the bulk carrier with grabs.
“About 60% of the export cargo is actually
sitting there, at the [FHT]… so the trick is to
feed another 40% during the 3-4 day load out.
That is how we optimise the size and number
of feeders, so that these feeders go 24/7,
backwards and forwards feeding just as a
truck or a train would.”
Ballantyne claimed that the company’s
system can operate in seas usually deemed
too rough for transshipping. “10 days of
model tests were carried out at the Australian
Maritime College during November 2010
confirming that 4.5 metre significant wave
heights can be handled without stopping the
feeder vessel operations, whereas two metres
is the normal maximum limit.
“The cost of a FHT and feeders and small
shore shed works out about 20-25% of a fixed
jetty installation. But the fixed installations
now have to place a bond to have them
removed at the end of the mine life, which
could add 30% as a contingent liability.”
This system is not indicative of a fixed
approach from CSL, however. Ian Ives,
the company’s director of transshipping
operations in Australia said “we tailor a
particular system to whatever the requirements are for the particular area where you
do the transhipping.
“You need to look at the cycle time, the
availability of the stockpile and shore loading
rate and the weather conditions. We look at
each individual circumstance that comes along
and we don’t believe there is one system that
fits all, because every situation is different.”
An example of this is CSL’s contract
for iron ore junior WPG Resources at Port
Pirie, which plans to begin exports in 2012.
Shallow draft self-unloading barges were
designed especially for the Spencer Gulf’s
shallow waters.
Brightwater Seabulk
(above) CSL transshipping in Whyalla for
OneSteel. (below) CSL’s Sea Spider
Transshipper located in East Kalimantan,
Indonesia, transships over 3.5mtpa for PT Berau.
CSL
CSL transships around 32 million tonnes of
various cargoes annually, with projects in
Australia, Indonesia, Canada and the U.S.
The company’s 6mtpa contract with OneSteel
uses two 12,000 dwt self-unloading barges.
The barges travel between Port Augusta and
unload at a floating offshore transshipment
platform at a rate of 5,000 tonnes per hour.
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING
Unlike the small sheds of the Sea
Transport system, WPG has built a substantial $50m shed at its onshore terminal.
Ives said small storage capacities in the
transhipment system – onshore or on a
floating platform – can pose problems when
multiple grades of ore are involved.
“OneSteel has a shed with 250,000 tonnes
capacity. When you start dividing that up
into different grades, the capacity drops to
150,000 tonnes, because you have to separate
between your cargoes.” A floating platform
“would have exactly the same problem.”
The lead time for a transshipment operation depends upon the particular circumstances as well, Ives said. For OneSteel
the system took 18 months, and WPG’s
system just four months, as it only needed
“modifications to one of our self-unloaders.”
New Zealand-based engineering firm
Brightwater Group operates a transhipping
joint venture with Seabulk Systems
of Canada.
David McGregor, group business development manager for Brightwater, said his
company first tested the waters on a partnership with Seabulk in 2006. “Brightwater
was looking for a partner to deliver a barge
loading terminal for a coal project on the
New Zealand west coast.
“Seabulk had developed a similar terminal
in Campbell River British Colombia and the
two firms decided to replicate some features.”
He explained that Brightwater Seabulk
officially came into being in 2007. It first
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JULY / AUGUST 2011
53
u
FEATURE I BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING
(left) The Floating Harbour Transshipper (blue vessel) with aft dock and feeder inside with a Panamax alongside. (right) Sea Transport’s patented stern loading
vessel, which has capacities ranging from 3-6,000 tonnes.
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FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
tendered when “Gindalbie Metals was
looking for a transshipment solution for
ore exports from a shallow-draft port at
Geraldton.”
Brightwater Seabulk “signed a heads of
agreement with Gindalbie, which did not
lead to a TSA agreement due to project
changes.” Brightwater Seabulk has gone on
to develop plans for several other projects
for: Grange Resources, Aurox, Atlas Iron
and MCC of China.
McGregor said “our target market is
Australia, New Zealand and the Asia Pacific
region. This is a huge market for dry bulk
exports of coal and iron ore. Lack of port
infrastructure and the urgency to tap into
Asian demand will continue.”
Seabulk builds “custom-designed systems,
involving top-down or gravity reclaim systems,” McGregor said. The company has also
developed transshippers for dewatering slurry
cargo and loading dry cargo in open seas.
“Concepts and sub-systems from previous
projects are usually customized to deal
with requirements for each project. This
is very much dependent on operability of
the transshipper at a particular site. However,
the economics work when the minimum
yearly tonnage is 3-4mtpa, and the upper
limit is 8mtpa.”
One of Seabulk’s flagship projects is in
southern India with the Goan Pride bulk
carrier, which was converted into a transshipment vessel in 2006. It has storage capacity
of around 120,000 tonnes and is fitted with
self-unloading equipment.
The Goan Pride is loaded 22 nautical miles
offshore by barges. The transshipper is fitted
with hoppered holds, basket gates, a tunnel
conveyor, a C – loop conveyor and a travelling shiploader.
It is loaded by barges with four highcapacity grab cranes with a 2,000 tonnes
per hour capacity. Seabulk’s transshipper
can load a large 300,000 tonne Capesize
vessel in about three to four days, discharging
its cargo at approximately 4,000 tonnes
per hour.
Brightwater Seabulk is currently seeking
its inaugural Australian contract.
Avoiding liquefaction and dust
Cargoes containing small particles and too
much moisture can liquefy in transit. This
can cause a cargo shifting effect, which
may be sufficient to capsize a bulk carrier.
The transportable moisture limits sets a
standard to prevent liquefaction.
All three companies employ similar measures that they say are sufficient to prevent
this from occurring. Essentially, they are
covered barges, stockpiles, and loading
and unloading facilities which prevent rain
from entering the product.
A transshipping system, all three
companies said, can remove the burden of
fugitive dust emissions from an exporter’s
environmental approval process. They
claim their systems will greatly speed
governmental approvals that consider
dust emissions.
Each company stated that its closed
system is effective and proven. Extraction
fans capture and re-circulate dust from
sheds, barges and transshipment platform
stockpiles.
Enquiries aplenty
It would appear that the potential for junior
companies is beginning to be recognised. Ives
reports that CSL is in discussion with 50
prospective companies that are considering
transshipment in their pre-feasibility studies.
McGregor said Brightwater Seabulk is
also enjoying significant interest in Australia
and overseas.
Sea Transport “has 28 speaking to us
globally and seven of those are in the serious
level of discussion,” Ballantyne said.
n
Contacts: www.cslaustralia.com.au,
www.seatransport.com, www.brightwater.co.nz
(left) Sea Transport’s system uses small sheds. (right) Building a small harbour for barge loading can save on infrastructure costs normally associated with bulk
commodities terminals.
54
JULY / AUGUST 2011
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Drive over mobile shiploaders
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FEATURE I BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING
Transshipping in Indonesia’s calm seas. Some experts warn Australia’s rougher conditions will preclude the technique in some locations
(image courtesy of Qmastor).
Potential slips for
transshipping to ships
A viable transshipping operation depends on a multitude of factors, including
geography, prevailing sea conditions, water depths, export volumes and
project life. Mike Foley spoke to a range of experts to discover what prospective
operators need to consider.
A
ndrew keith, resources portfolio manager at Aurecon, cut his teeth
in transshipping amongst the coal
rich islands of Indonesia. Calm seas, shallow
water, low labour costs and a lack of existing
infrastructure means that barging and offshore
shiploading are an obvious solution for the
region’s prolific coal mines.
Keith told AJM “most of the coal that
comes out of Indonesia is from the island of
Borneo, in the province of Kalimantan.
Historically, development of the coal industry
there has been around getting to the easy coal
to be transported. The easiest transport has
been directly on the coast, or you put it on
barges, float it down the river and transship it
into a larger vessel.”
He said transshipping operations in
Indonesia “range from being a bit more than a
floating crane, in that they have floating grab
cranes to unload the barges. The product comes
directly into a hopper, then onto a conveyor
and onto a shiploader boom that loads the ship.
There are also some that have replaced grab
cranes with continuous unloading systems.
56
JULY / AUGUST 2011
“There are some facilities coming into play
now with storage facilities for the coal, so you
don’t have to stop shiploading when you
change barges. The approach there is to build
up your stock before the ship comes in. The
ship comes in and you bring barges alongside
the cranes, unloading to the hopper that is on
the shiploader.
“In fact there is only one shore-based coal
port capable of fully loading Cape-class vessels in Indonesia, so there is limited access to
deepwater for all the large bulk carriers.”
Keith identified some of the trends evident
in bulk handling for minerals in Indonesia.
“One is that people are again looking at the
development of shore based terminals for
large capacities, but they often require a lot of
dredging or long jetties to get out to deep
water. Or there is one proposal there to put a
stockyard area on an island and take barges
out to it and then transship it onto a vessel.”
Keith pointed out that two coal terminals,
built in the region by BHP and Adara Coal
in the 1990s, both employ this concept.
In Australia, similar trends are emerging.
Andrew Keith, resources portfolio manager
at Aurecon.
“With a large project we are looking at in
Australia, it seems to us it has a window of
opportunity, in that there are bottlenecks at the
ports. That is something to consider when you
are unloading on the barges from a shore
facility, then bringing it to a floating terminal,” Keith said.
He stressed, however, that each case for
transshipment needs to be judged on its
merits, while acknowledging that there are
potential benefits. “You can potentially get it
[barge loading and transshipment facilities] in
place a lot quicker, pay off your capital. Then
the fact that you have higher operating costs,
because of the nature of the facility, means
that having paid off your capital expenditure,
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AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING
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BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING I FEATURE
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FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
you might be able to bring your charges down
to be competitive with some of the larger
shore based facilities.
“It is going to come down to balancing out:
what is the total rate you need to achieve in a
year, how much operating time will you have
to lose to weather in the year, how will that
line up with your ship arrivals and what rate
does the facility need to shipload to be able to
achieve the [export] rate you are targeting?”
Unlike Indonesia, deep ocean swells and
the regularity of their occurrence will be
a major factor in determining the viability
of an Australian transshipment operation,
Keith explained.
“I expect there will be seasons of the year
when there will be issues with that. You might
be able to moor vessels so the transshipment
facility gets some shadowing for the wave
conditions and is able to operate, but there
is a limit to the levels in which transshipment
can operate.”
Lastly, there is an “option to use a converted bulk carrier … it can be as simple as
offloading storage with grab cranes, unloading
from your barges, with the grabs unloading
from the hold of the bulk carrier into the
export vessel. There are some in the US that
use self-discharging vessels, which have
shiploading conveyors that load into the
export vessel,” Keith concluded.
Graham Stafford is a principal consulting
engineer for ProMet, which is a major player
in consulting to Australian iron ore juniors.
He said a key consideration was the projected
life of the mine and two transshipping suppliers in Australia told ProMet that “a 10 year
contract is required for them to amortise their
initial capital expenditure.
“This means that the operation costs are set
for that period, with or without escalation
conditions. This means the life of the mine
must cover this time frame otherwise the mining company would be subject to a substantial
claim from the transshipment operator.”
Stafford said a company should “consider
transshipping when it is not able to obtain
access to existing port facilities, at an economical distance from the product source that
can cater for 170,000 tonne bulk carriers or
larger, to minimise freight rates to the buyer
destination.”
Companies should also “consider transshipping when the sea in the desired location is
relatively shallow for a considerable distance
offshore, before obtaining a minimum 20
metre depth of water without dredging. This is
the case on most of the Pilbara coast,” Stafford
said, in reference to the savings transshipping
can deliver by removing expensive construction costs associated with a deepwater port.
However, transshipping does mean some
construction costs, he explained. “There is a
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING
need to have a causeway out from the shore to
a minimum depth of six metres, to suit five
metre draft barges, plus a protective groyne to
shelter the barges when they are being loaded.
“Transshipping saves the cost of constructing conventional shore side port facilities and
associated dredging costs. The nominal capacity of a single berth with one shiploader is
35mtpa in a sheltered environment such as
Port Hedland or Dampier using 170,000 tonne
carriers and larger bulk carriers.”
Stafford said miners considering transshipment are well advised to keep an eye on
developing bulk handling trends. “It is
predicted that 75% of the world fleet for bulk
carriers suitable for iron ore will be in the
170,000 to 180,000 tonne range, which indicates that this will be where the most competitive rates will be obtained,” he concluded.
All sources contacted by AJM emphasised
that transshipping is not a one-size-fits-all
solution. Gindalbie Metals’ Karara iron ore
project is a case in point. Karara, a JV with
AnSteel is initially exporting around 11.5mtpa
through the Port of Geraldton, with plans to
expand to 30mtpa.
Relative motion between barges and transshipment
vessels is a determining factor for operable loading
conditions.
Like many previous iron ore exporters
around the country, Karara was wedged
between its hunger for a rapid route to export
and a lack of existing port infrastructure.
The very same factors pushed companies
like OneSteel at Whyalla, WPG at Port Pirie,
IronClad in Lucky Bay and Sino Iron at
Cape Preston into transshipment.
So why did Gindalbie pump its cash into a
traditional port facility? A source at Karara
told AJM it was an economic decision.
Transshipping has its own capital expenditure associated with infrastructure, they said.
“You have to have something to load your
barge, and sure it could be a smaller
shiploader, but you still have to have some
sort of berth facility and a storage facility to
load those transshippers.”
In total, Gindalbie is spending about
$2.6 billion on Karara. A large whack of the
bill has gone into a terminal at Geraldton.
The company “built a brand new berth,
brand new shiploader, brand new storage
facility, brand new train unloader – brand
new everything for a port.”
The future security of access to infrastructure was considered an ongoing benefit of the
investment, the source said. “Because we have
our own terminal, we don’t have to apply to
anyone else. We can just run our own game.”
Most significantly, in regards to the wider
take up of transshipping across the sector,
prevailing sea conditions in the Indian
Ocean were an insurmountable obstacle for
transshipping.
Gindalbie studied the potential for interruptions to loading using transshipping offshore
of Geraldton and concluded that there would
be too much downtime due to rough conditions, and the company would “only have got
about 252 days that we could load.”
Stuart Ballantyne of Sea Transport said his
company can provide a transshipping solution
for rough sea states off the West Australian
coast. “We might be able to say, OK, if it is
open Indian Ocean conditions, for this wave
spectrum then we will use this size Floating
Harbour Transshipper, which will be able to
work about 330-340 days in a year.”
David Mitchell of Brightwater Engineering
was more measured in his appraisal of the
potential for transshipping in heavy seas.
“Usually, ship-to-ship transfer is discontinued
for liquid bulk at 3.0 metre significant wave
height and 2.5 metre for dry bulk,” Mitchell
explained. “There are numerous special
mooring, fendering and bulk handling systems
required to deal with prevailing sea conditions.
“The West Coast of Australia, and New
Zealand, poses a challenge to transshipment
operations,” he said.
Ian Ives of CSL was less circumspect.
He said a company considering transshipping
“came and asked us to do transshipment off
Geraldton. I said ‘you have got to be kidding!’
“You go into the deep ocean off Geraldton
and you have a huge swell coming from the
south west. The relative motion between the
barges, or the two ships, or whatever you are
using can be quite significant. You will get to
the stage where it would be impossible to
transship, not even worth your while.”
Ives said it was the energy in the swell “not
the height of the waves” that determines the
impact on a transshipping operation. Fetch
length, the distance over which the wave generating wind has blown – coupled with the
wind’s speed, determines how much energy is
contained in the swell.
CSL, with IronClad Mining, is currently
preparing to begin transshipping in the
Spencer Gulf in South Australia. Ives said “we
have two, even two-and-a-half metre swells in
the Gulf, but the fetch of those swells is very
short.” These swells, despite their height, do
not make “the relative motion between the
barges and the ships impracticable.”
However, Ives stressed, “when you get out
into deep ocean swells, there is a lot of energy
coming through.”
n
JULY / AUGUST 2011
57
FEATURE I BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING
Photos this page and overleaf show Sino Iron’s Cape Preston port facilities.
Sino Iron’s jumbo transshipment
for Cape Preston iron ore
It is not just juniors using transshipment to export as quickly as possible.
Citic Pacific will use the technique for its huge Sino Iron magnetite project
at Cape Preston, 100kms south west of Karratha in the Pilbara.
T
he $5bn Sino iron operation will
ramp up to export over 27mtpa of
pellets and concentrate. It has a two
billion tonne measured resource, with options
to develop an additional four billion tonnes.
It remains to be seen if Citic Pacific will
build a deepwater port in the long term, but
58
JULY / AUGUST 2011
for now the company is well advanced in
developing a transshipment system.
It will be big and it will be bold: transshipping on an unprecedented scale and loading
in the tempestuous Indian Ocean.
A Sino Iron spokesman told the AJM “a
transshipment port was chosen for several
reasons, including the environmental impact
of building a deepwater port. This was a
rapid development project and at the time
the schedule did not allow us to secure the
equipment required for such a construction
before export was required.”
Sino Iron’s transshipment system will
consist of a breakwater to shelter the loading
facilities, a port stockyard and conveyor
system, a barge loader that works like a
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AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING
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BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING I FEATURE
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FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
small ship loader and a large fleet of barges
and transshipment vessels. The company
said construction of the port facilities was
almost complete.
The 2.6km breakwater is finished and
“construction is almost completed on the project’s concentrate stacker, the giant apparatus
for stockpiling the concentrate once it reaches
the port, as well as the reclaimer, a machine
with 10 big buckets attached to a wheel
that scoops ore from the product stockpile.”
Barges and transshipment vessels are
currently being built in China.
“
“
The barges will be loaded
unimpeded by prevailing
sea conditions as they shelter
behind the breakwater.
So how will the system work? The conveyor
will carry material along the breakwater to
the barge loaders. The barges will be loaded
unimpeded by prevailing sea conditions as
they shelter behind the breakwater.
Once loaded, the barges will be towed
by tugs about 20kms offshore, where two
large scale transshipment platforms wait.
Product will be transferred to Citic Pacific’s
own purpose-built 115,000t bulk carriers,
which will transport the concentrate to the
company’s Chinese steel mills.
Sino Iron conceded that sea conditions
will be an issue. It said “sea conditions will
impact this operation on occasion. However,
we have various operating strategies to minimise this affect.
“We have real-time oceanographic monitoring systems in place at the barge loading and
transshipment points, so that we understand
the sea conditions at all times. We also have
electronic real time weather information as
wind effects can also alter the steps that need
to be taken to continue to load.”
All eyes will be on this pioneering project.
No doubt other companies planning large
scale operations around the world will closely
monitor Sino Iron’s progress.
n
Contact: www.citicpacificmining.com
“
“
Sea conditions will impact this
operation on occasion. However,
we have various operating
strategies to minimise this affect.
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING
Sino’s 2.6km breakwater shelters barges during loading.
JULY / AUGUST 2011
59
FEATURE I BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING
Cape Alumina might employ self-unloading barges, a staple of CSL’s business.
Cape Alumina to transship
Cape York bauxite
Transshipment is an obvious solution for Cape Alumina’s remote Bauxite Hills project, located 95kms north of Weipa in an
area of Western Cape York with shallow water, sheltered seas and no existing infrastructure.
C
ape alumina acting chief
executive Neville Conway told AJM
“we are looking to become a major
miner and exporter of bauxite to the growing
Asian market, particularly China, [who] are
short on bauxite and long on aluminium
production capacity.”
Currently, the company is in the development phase. Conway said “later this year we
are undertaking a drill program to establish
our maiden JORC resource for the project.”
Cape Alumina said in an ASX statement its
exploration target is 50 – 100mt.
Previously, Cape Alumina was further
advanced with plans for its nearby Pisolite
Hills bauxite deposit, having established a
resource estimate of 132mt. But this project
is now on hold. In June 2010 an amendment
to the Wild Rivers legislation declared
its Wenlock River basin location a high
preservation area.
Conway said Cape Alumina has transferred
the essential elements of the transshipment
operations developed for Pisolite into plans
for Bauxite Hills. AJM understands the
CONTINUES NEXT PAGE
Cape Alumina will develop its transshipping operation from the ground up, with no existing infrastructure available.
60
JULY / AUGUST 2011
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING
u
BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING I FEATURE
FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
transshipment operation was developed
in conjunction with Canadian Steamship
Limited (CSL)
“Initially, we looked at a range of options
and we came up with the transshipment
solution,” Conway explained. “The pre-feasibility study for our Pisolite project was quite
comprehensive and we are using a lot of the
work we did there and applying it to the new
project at Bauxite Hills.”
In terms of export rates, the company has
ambitious figures in mind for Bauxite Hills.
OneSteel’s operation at Whyalla currently
holds the record for the most bulk material
by transhipment in Australia, exporting
around 6mtpa with shipping partner CSL.
“We have undertaken a concept study,
which looks at shipping one to three to
seven to 10mtpa. We are aiming at a final
production figure of about 10mtpa at Bauxite
Hills, meaning we will be able to sustain
around about a 15 year export operation,”
Conway said.
Conway claimed “the process we are looking at doing is quite innovative, and a very
elegant solution to extracting the product in
the most economic, efficient and environmentally sustainable way.
“We will have a small port and barge loading facility in Skardon River, shallow draught
barges will then transship the product 15 nautical miles offshore to a mooring in the Gulf
… [the product] is then loaded and exported
to market.”
The potentially low environmental footprint
of a transshipping operation, with minimal
onshore building and reduced dust emissions,
was another key benefit of the system, according to Conway.
“The simple fact of the matter is this is the
most cost effective and lowest environmental
impact proposal. It is also based upon the
feedback we received from the traditional
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING
“
We will have a small port and barge loading facility
in Skardon River, shallow draught barges will then
transship the product 15 nautical miles offshore.
owners … we need to have full support from
the local community for our activities, to get
permits up and running, so we need to listen
to the community.”
Cape Alumina’s ore and geography are
particular factors in its favour, said Conway.
“Western Cape York bauxite in particular is
attractive to that [Asian] market, because it is
high grade bauxite. It yields a good percentage of alumina and we are close to market.” n
Contact: www.capealumina.com.au
WPG Resources and CSL
devise system for Port Pirie
WPG Resources, a South Australian iron ore junior with projects near Coober
Pedy, is preparing to start exporting via transshipment by the end of the year.
T
he tranSShipment SyStem
will run shallow draught self-unloading barges from Port Pirie into
Capesize bulk carriers in the Spencer Gulf.
CSL designed a shiploader for the project.
The device will fill barges docked at port,
where WPG recently built a new shed at a
cost of $50m. The system employs dust
suppression and extraction units on its
conveyors and shiploader, to comply with
stringent environmental standards.
CSL’s Ian Ives said that due to the particular requirements of the operation, costs were
“
commensurate with those of OneSteel’s
6mtpa transshipment system at Whyalla.
At Port Pirie “we had to look for … [a
transshipment vessel] that was far more
manoeuvrable and was much higher speed,
to take into account the longer transshipment
time. So when you put that together the
transshipment cost at Whyalla and Port Pirie
work out to be about the same,” he said.
AJM sought comment from WPG but had
no response by the time it went to press.
n
Contact: www.wpg.com.au
We had to look for … [a transshipment vessel] that was
far more manoeuvrable and was much higher speed…
“
t
“
Shallow draught barges will transship Cape Alumina’s product 15 nautical miles offshore to a mooring in the Gulf.
JULY / AUGUST 2011
61
FEATURE I BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING
Western Desert Resources to
transship in Gulf of Carpentaria
Iron ore junior Western Desert Resources’ (WDR) Roper Bar
project, in terms of bulk handling infrastructure, lays smack
bang in the middle of nowhere. It appears set to advance
despite this, however, using a transshipping operation to
free it from expensive port facilities.
W
dr’S roper Bar deposits are
40kms inland from the western
shores of The Gulf of Carpentaria,
in the north west of the Northern Territory
and 80kms from a settlement of the same
name. The project area is vacant crown land
and not a national park, hastening development, so first production is slated for 2014.
The company is currently undertaking a
pre-feasibility study on an estimated resource
of 311.8mt at 40% Fe. This includes direct
shipping ore of 14.5mt at 57.4% Fe. Like
Cape Alumina, the alternative to transshipping
was dredging a channel and building a port
to accommodate a bulk carrier.
WDR reported that “various coastal
engineering and shipping consultants have
been engaged for studies of logistics and
infrastructure. This has included extensive
bathymetry surveys to determine the position
of arrival channels for bulk carriers and
optimum loading positions.”
WDR has not settled on a particular transshipment system, but it has determined the
basic elements. Most significantly, nearby
Maria Island has been
identified as the preferred barge loading
point, which will be
fed by a slurry pipeline
from the mainland.
Bob Howard, project
manager iron ore,
WDR explained
“we have a bit of
deepwater north of
the island. If we have
a barge loading jetty
on the north of the
island, then we can
use that as a staging
post for tug and barge
operations to head out and load a bulk carrier.
We are looking at 3.5mtpa.”
Howard explained that under current plans,
the product “will be delivered to Maria Island
in a slurry pipeline. On the island the water
would be removed and pumped back to the
mine. We would have enclosed buildings to
store the fine iron ore product.
(below) Location of Western Desert Resources’ Roper Bar project. (above) Drilling at Roper Bar.
“That [product] would be loaded onto
a barge on the island and get taken to the
ocean going vessel loading position. Then
it would be moved with cranes, or whatever
is appropriate at that phase of the operation,
to be loaded onto ships.”
Howard said he identified 16,000tph as a
starting point for the loading rate he would
like the transshipment system to exceed and
that WDR was talking to several companies
that build floating platforms as part of its
pre-feasibility study.
A significant concern Howard said, even
within the Gulf, is sea conditions. “You get
the differential wave movement between
the ship and the barge and there is a lack of
control of the grabs that can cause damage,”
he said. He has concluded, after studying
meteorological databases, “that the wind is
not that high and the number of loading days
would be more than enough.”
Despite the challenges, it seems transshipment is the best available solution for
WDR’s bulk handling needs. “We need a
system that can cope with the run up
through the tonnages, that is the challenge,”
Howard said.
“I have never known a subject, in all
my life, with so many rabbits running down
holes and different opinions. But we are
beginning to sort it out now.”
n
Contact: www.westerndesertresources.com.au
62
JULY / AUGUST 2011
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING
BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING I FEATURE
Covered containers at Port Lincoln
for Lincoln Minerals
Lincoln Minerals has several prospective projects across South Australia’s
Eyre Peninsula. It plans to use the
latest in containerisation technology
for its flagship Gum Flat project, which
lies just 20kms from Port Lincoln.
C
ontainer tippler specialist,
Rotainer has developed a covered
container, which aims to eliminate
almost all dust emissions. Dr John Parker,
Lincoln’s managing director, said the
company had firmly settled on Rotainer’s
covered containers as its preferred material
and storage handling system.
Lincoln Minerals expects to begin exports
for stage one of its 500mtpa DSO Gum Flat
project in the final quarter of 2012. It has a
120mt resource, with further exploration
targets on its lease. The company hopes to
ramp up to a total of 12mtpa of ore and
concentrate by 2015.
Lincoln claims the project, out of all others
in Australia, is the closest to an existing port
facility. Port Lincoln is a mere 20kms away,
however its shallow draft will limit bulk
carriers to Panamax size.
“There are ships coming into Port Lincoln
that can handle the Rotainer system. They
have got their own gear that can handle containers,” Dr Parker said. He explained that
superphosphate is unloaded in containers by a
Rotainer system. “We are looking at reversing
that system and sending iron ore out,” he said.
The covered Rotainer system removes the
lid as it picks up and rotates a container into
a ship’s hold. Above it, a dust suppression
system reduces fugitive emissions.
“There will be very little, if any, dust from
[the containers]. They will be covered. And
Location of Lincoln Minerals’ Gum Flat project on the Eyre Peninsula.
being covered, there is no opportunity for the
dust to get out.”
Dr Parker said that because ore trucks
would need to move through town to reach
port, an uncovered container was not a
viable option, due to the requirements of
the development application.
He explained that traffic pressure on the
town was not an issue, due to the modest
500ktpa export rate. “We are not anticipating
a lot of trucks going through the city. About
two or three road trains an hour. They would
have a 30 tonne container on each of the
wagons,” he said.
n
Lincoln Minerals
managing director
Dr John Parker.
Lincoln’s managing director said
the company had firmly settled
on Rotainer’s covered containers.
Contact: www.lincolnminerals.com.au
(left) A Handymax carrier unloading superphosphate. The ship has its own gear
that Lincoln Minerals believes may be suitable for using with a Rotainer to load
iron ore. (below) Port Lincoln can only accommodate Panamax vessels, up to
80,000 tonnes.
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING
JULY / AUGUST 2011
63
FEATURE I BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING
Century mine uses 5,000 tonne
transfer vessel
Another Gulf of Carpenteria miner,
Mineral and Metals Group (MMG),
capitalises on its location’s benign sea
conditions with a large transshipment
operation for zinc concentrate from
the venerable Century mine.
A
uStralia’S largeSt open cut
zinc mine, producing around 500,000
tonnes of zinc metal in concentrate
annually, operates a self-unloading barge out
of the coastal town of Karumba in the remote
lower Gulf region of north-west Queensland.
Century’s barge, the MV Wunma – which
was supplied by Sea Transport Corp – was
specially built to ply the shallow waters of
the Norman River channel.
Engineering firm BMT WBM designed the
materials handling plant for the cargo hold on
the MV Wunma, as well as the dust control
systems. It said the system has a throughput
of 2,000tph, utilising a bucketwheel reclaimer,
loading hopper, load distributing gantry,
discharge boom and seven conveyors.
A bulk carrier sits in deeper water 45kms
off the coast. The self-unloading barge
deposits parcels of concentrates weighing up
to 5,000 tonnes each. It takes about 12 hours
for the MV Wunma to complete the cycle of
loading, transferring and discharging the
concentrate and then returning to Karumba.
Mining and processing operations take
place at Lawn Hill, 304kms to the inland,
south west of the port. Concentrates are
transported to Karumba via an underground
pipeline. It can take three days for a single
pump station located at the mine to propel
the concentrates to Karumba.
n
(above) MV Wunma at MMG’s Century. (below) Australia’s largest open cut zinc mine transships 500,000tpa
of zinc concentrate.
Contact: www.mmg.com
(below L to R) Century Zinc’s location. Bucket wheel reclaimer on the MV Wunma. Boom on the MV Wunma.
64
JULY / AUGUST 2011
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING
BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING I FEATURE
(left) Bulk Converters’ tippler at Townsville. (above)
Western Areas export of containerised nickel concentrate on voyage from Esperance to Xingang, China.
Bulk Converters using containers
for nickel concentrates
Bulk Converters Australia and its parent company Merchant Shipping, which
offer supply chain logistics solutions for bulk exporters, have recently entered
the container tippler market.
B
ulk converterS’ container
tippler system, the ConVerter, is
currently in place at the Port of
Townsville with two more in production.
The company said the ConVerter is suited
to sized or sensitive cargo, with a load out
capacity exceeding 10,000 tonnes per day.
It has a rotation time of approximately
15 seconds and can tip up to 35 tonnes.
Rotation speed and direction are controlled
by the operator, to manage safety and
minimise associated environmental risks,
the company said.
The ConVerter can handle standard 20ft
and half height open top containers. It is
adaptable for offloading directly into ships’
hold or can be attached to a mobile crane
for tipping onto stock piles. It can also
be modified to attach to any standard crane
headblock.
Brett Money, general manager of Bulk
Converters said “lidded container tippler
systems require special containers. It doesn’t
lend itself to flexibility for the mine site
or lease operators to use that equipment
elsewhere, whereas our tipping system uses
standard ISO open top containers.
“When you start getting into parcel sizes
of over 10,000 tonnes, then tippling from
containers into ships makes a lot of sense.
“Using a tippler system can allow small
operators to generate cash a lot quicker than
it would take to develop proper overhead
infrastructure and bulk loaders.
“The other thing [tipplers] are good for is
when you have a short mine life. You might
have a high grade, but a proven reserve of
only two or three years.”
Merchant Shipping, Bulk Converters’
parent company, provides a whole logistics
chain service, building and supplying the
equipment needed to transport a product
from pit through to delivery point. “We can
provide, quite uniquely for our customers,
a delivered rate per tonne of product into
markets like China,” Money explained.
Money said that through Bulk Converters
“we can also provide the equipment needed
to move the product from mine to market.
“What you have in the supply chain is a
lot of focus by the domestic players on getting
the stuff to port, and then you have a lot of
focus by the international players on the shipping, but no one is really cementing the mine
to export market.
“Some people come to us and say ‘I can
get a cheaper rate per tonne from a carrier’,
but then they are paying in stevedoring and
demurrage and so on. What they think is a
cheap price when they look at the whole supply chain cost is actually quite significant.”
Money said that containerised bulk handling should be considered “when you start
getting into smaller higher value cargoes,
where the product might be anything from
2 -6,000 tonnes and up. We think that unitising and containerising the product makes a
lot more sense then.
“We are shipping half height containers
of nickel to Esperance … exporting nickel
concentrate to Canada and China. It proves
the containerisation of certain bulk commodities, whether it is just for part or the whole
of the journey has some real merit.”
n
Contact: www.merchant.com.au
BCA loading of vessel with containerised nickel concentrate at the Port of Esperance.
Visit www.theajmonline.com.au
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING
JULY / AUGUST 2011
65
FEATURE I BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING
Update on IMX’s ore handling
systems at Port Adelaide
AJM first reported on iron ore junior IMX’s use of a container tippler system
in February. Heated debate followed on the pros and cons of this innovative
infrastructure. Mike Foley updates the story.
S
outh auStralian miner IMX
Resources entered production for the
miserly sum of $20 million. To do it,
the company capitalised on existing container
handling gear at Port Adelaide, where it loads
customised containers using a rotary tippler
attached to a container crane.
This allowed it to avoid the huge costs
confronting most iron ore projects which
have to fund a large storage shed, jetty and
shiploader.
IMX exports around 1.7mtpa of direct
shipping ore (DSO) through Port Adelaide
from its 11.4mt inferred iron ore resource
at the Cairn Hill project, 55kms south-east
of Coober Pedy.
Essentially, in planning its project, IMX
was seeking the fastest and cheapest route to
market. Duncan McBain, managing director
of IMX explained “if you were to build a shed
and bottom dump facility, you’d be looking
at $35 – $40m.
“It wasn’t something that was completely
left field. We managed to find somebody to
get the right sort of containers for us. It took
a little bit of work when we first started out.”
Rotainer supplied port operator DP World
with the first tippler, which loaded IMX’s
inaugural shipment. RAM Spreaders supplied
three more. “I think we were talking about
28 tonnes payload originally and now we are
up to about 34.5 tonnes payload,” McBain
explained.
Word of the tippler system spread quickly
after first shipment. AJM’s sister publication
Lloyds List DCN has played host to an
ongoing debate over the system’s viability,
with loading rates and ongoing costs the
contested issues.
Gary Hunt, manager at Soros Engineering,
wrote on 14th April that “the achieved bulk
handling rates are paltry at 20,000 tonnes per
day.” Hunt stated that Port Adelaide’s system
“should be seen as a fantastic system for
helping junior miners get up and running
not as a long-term solution,” and that “this
truly should be a debate or more importantly
an analysis of long-term average costs.”
McBain replied two weeks later: “In many
locations like Adelaide around the world,
there is container infrastructure which in
many cases has spare capacity. Utilising
66
JULY / AUGUST 2011
this existing container infrastructure has the
potential to deliver lower life cycle costs and
a more rapid path to production for many
small to mid-sized operations.”
McBain said “I think some of the people
externally were pretty harsh. I think there was
some vested interest in the port industry and
the engineering industry involved there.”
Speaking to AJM recently, four shiploads
after the tippler’s controversial maiden operation, Flinders Ports and DP World reported
that the system has come up trumps.
According to Andrew Pellizzari, logistics
manager at Flinders Ports, “loading the last
two vessels has been absolutely cracking.”
Pellizzari said that initially “there was a
lot of hard work. You have to remember
the first vessel we only had one Rotainer,
that was it. We hooked it up and started
loading. We couldn’t test the conditions and
there were times we had to stop and tweak
the system.”
Andrew Towers, general manager of DP
Adelaide said “we have done four shipments
now and everything is very good … from a
point of view of where we thought we would
be, I as a general manger am very happy with
the system.”
“There is still a lot of equipment to come
down … from the sea to the crane is a bit
of a bottleneck at the moment,” Pellizzari
explained, noting that the port still needs
four straddles.
CONTINUES NEXT PAGE
RAM Spreader loading a vessel with iron ore from IMX Resources at Port Adelaide.
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING
u
BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING I FEATURE
(left) RAM Spreader loading a vessel with iron ore from IMX Resources at Port Adelaide. (right) Rainstorm’s dust suppression system in action for IMX.
t
FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
However, he said “the line rate has
improved out of sight, at least 80%, and now
we are hitting the rates we need to hit. But we
think we can do a lot more ... we still haven’t
got two thirds of the equipment and labour
that we need and we have hit the mark that
we need to hit already. So we are extremely
happy with the way things are going.”
Towers agreed that there was room for
improvement. “It is a new system for our
employees, so as we go down the track they
will get more exposure to it and their rates
will get better.” Pellizzari said that IMX’s latest shipment of approximately 80,000 tonnes
had reached the targeted rate of around
20,000 tonnes a day.
Both Towers and Pellizzari said the tippler
system was a big improvement for dust emissions. Towers said that with the tippler and a
dust suppression system there are no dust
emissions. “That is part of our license requirement, that there was no visible dust,” he said.
Product manager for RAM Spreaders
Cameron Hay said that the tippler system
should not create dust emissions during loading. The container is lowered into the ship’s
hatch, where an overhead misting system can
suppress emissions.
The longer drop from the boom of a
conventional shiploader is open to the elements and generates a plume of dust in the
air displaced by the ore as it enters the hatch.
IMX has a dust suppression system supplied
by Rainstorm, which deploys a fogging spray
on the rim of the ship’s hold to capture rising
dust from containers as they unload.
“Because we put the container almost on
top of the ore inside the vessel, and it is
rotated, you don’t produce a lot of dust.
We have a monitoring system around the
mouth of the hold.
“As you walk on the deck of the vessel
you don’t leave any footprints, which is very
unusual for an iron ore vessel,” McBain said.
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING
Both RAMS and Rotainer have orders
for more tipplers, and are hopeful the system
will find wider use in the dry bulk materials
industry. Rotainer has recently started producing a specialised container with an automatic
lid lifting system. RAMS has just taken a
patent on a system that can deliver increased
loading rates, of up to 1500-1700 tonnes
per hour, Hay said.
For now, IMX and port operators are
satisfied with the situation. McBain told AJM
that IMX will continue to use the tippler
system into the future. It remains to be seen
if any of the many developing juniors will
follow suit, as they seek a quick and easy
route to export. From Pellizzari’s viewpoint, it
would be a welcome development. “For mining juniors, this just makes sense,” he said. n
Contact: www.rotainer.com.au www.ramspreaders.com
More miners and ports
consider container rotation
Besides IMX Resources at Port Adelaide, many more bulk commodity
and concentrate exporters are either already using these systems, or
plan to do so in the near future.
T
hySSenkrupp was a pioneer
in tippler systems. It designed a container tippler for use at Durban in
2003, although this was a very heavy device.
The company is now looking at developing
an upgraded second generation model, incorporating weight reductions, improved control
systems and an optional dust control system.
AJM contacted ThyssenKrupp for comment,
but none was received.
Closer to home, Panoramic Resources is
tippling containers of concentrate at Wyndham
and is already developing the third incarnation
of its system. IronClad will kick off its ramp
up to bulk exports tippling into a bulk carrier
from a barge operation that transships containers out into the Spencer Gulf (see page 70).
AJM understands Iluka, Minmetals and a certain copper exporter at Port Hedland are currently considering containerised bulk systems.
Bunbury Port has a tippler. Cazaly
Resources planned to export through
Fremantle with Rotainer’s new lidded
containers, to satisfy dust emission standards,
but was rebuffed at the last moment by
State Government.
Junior iron ore miner Lincoln Minerals
will use a tippler fitted to ship cranes to
export through Port Lincoln (see page 63).
This system will enable the company to truck
Rotainer’s newly developed lidded containers
through the town without emitting dust and
to then use ships’ cranes – which are already
geared up to unload superphosphate – to
tipple the containers into an export vessel.
Only time will tell how widespread the
use of tippler systems will be by miners.
Concentrate exporters, requiring closed
containers, will have different needs from iron
ore, coal and bauxite producers. With the
market in its infancy, technology and system
kinks will inevitably require fixing. Sticking
points will likely be loading rates, and questions around owning or leasing containers. n
JULY / AUGUST 2011
67
FEATURE I BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING
(left) The Mk III tippler. (above) Panoramic Resources and CPC
Engineering’s Mk II Tippler. (below) The old skip loading method.
Panoramic Resources:
keeping a lid on exports
Copper and nickel miner Panoramic Resources uses containers for bulk handling
of concentrate from its Savannah mine, which lies 240kms south of Kununurra in
the East Kimberley. It has developed its own system at Wyndham Port featuring a
tippler designed for lidded containers.
T
he company is preparing to take
the new tippler system to market. Tim
Shervington, Panoramic’s commercial
officer said it is designed for low volume –
high value bulk exporters that lack access to
onshore port loading facilities.
Shervington said concentrates were the
main market “particularly from ports without
shore based container facilities. We have also
had enquiries from exporters using West
Australian ports with bulk ship loaders; it
appears due to the age of these facilities our
system may provide better economic and
environmental outcomes.”
Panoramic partnered with CPC Engineering,
which completed design and construction, to
develop its tippler system (see below). The
company was spurred into action by dissatisfaction with its old skip loading process.
Shervington said “skip loading resulted in
the spillage of the product, as it relied on the
skip bin bottoming out on loaded concentrate
to discharge. The tippler was developed to
improve the old loading practice … which
was the only alternative, since there are no
shore based loading facilities at Wyndham.”
Panoramic’s tippler works with Handy to
Panamax size vessels. The company reports
68
JULY / AUGUST 2011
that each crane can load about 6,000 tonnes
in 24 hours, with 25 tonnes of product per
container, making it possible to load the
substantial figure of 18,000 tonnes a day on
a three-crane vessel.
After conducting shore trials in May 2011,
Panoramic is preparing for further testing on
its Mk III tippler at Wyndham later this year.
“This version will enable the lid to be
removed and replaced during discharge in
the hold and will allow multiple jigs to load
vessels,” Shervington said.
He explained more generally that “all
tipping is conducted inside the hold, since
the concentrate has a low stowage factor.
Tippling will occur well below the hatchcoaming, which we believe is best practice
to minimise emissions.
“Containers are loaded in the nickel storage
shed onto the back of trailers, which are
then hauled by tractors alongside the vessel.
The circuit is approximately two kilometres
and we have three tractor/trailers operating
during each load-out, with one crane working
a tippling jig.”
Panoramic produced around 7,300 tonnes
of nickel contained in concentrate from its
Savannah project in the east Kimberley in
the year to end-June 2010. The product arrives
at Wyndham via a 240km truck haul from the
mine site. It is stored at port in a newly built
negative pressure shed.
“We have also trialled storing concentrate
in containers, for up to 45 days. The idea
here was to purchase a fleet of approximately
500 containers and store the monthly
shipments in containers at the port, instead
of constructing a purpose built concentrate
storage shed.
“One of the technical challenges in
container storage was the oxidisation of the
concentrate resulting in the formation of
large lumps which would have resulted in
material handling problems. This was overcome by the addition of a chemical, which
is proprietary information.”
n
Contact: www.panoramicresources.com
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING
BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING I FEATURE
POAGS’
container tippler
POAGS has been working with a number of its bulk export
customers to develop a containerised bulk transport and
handling solution. Over the last year it has developed a light
weight container rotator, which is mounted on ship cranes.
L
ike the other SyStemS canvassed here, the rotator and
container are lifted by the ship’s crane into the hold of the vessel.
Once inside the hold, the lid is lifted, the container is rotated
180 degrees and emptied and the lid is replaced before it is deposited
back on the wharf. The safe working limit of the rotator is 40 tonnes.
POAGS said “the concept was developed by working closely with
Doric Engineering, who provided technical solutions and manufacturing.”
The system is “ideally suited for small parcel bulk concentrate
exports” of around 10,000 tonnes, where the containers can be used to
store and transport the product directly from the mine site to the wharf.
The system can also be used for bulk commodities with up to
45,000 tonne parcels feeding from a stockpile and using a new halfheight container to aid material flow.
POAGS’ rotator has recently entered service in Bunbury, with a
number of additional operations anticipated to come onboard in future.
The company said a key advantage of the system is that it does not
require specific shore based cranes. The container rotator is self-sufficient
with its own power pack and is operated by the crane operator via remote
control.
POAGS, formerly P&O Automotive and General Stevedoring, is
Australia’s largest stevedoring provider, working in 28 Australian ports. n
Contact: www.poags.com.au
POAGS’ system in action.
Savings in the supply chain from software
Mining software company Qmastor says companies contemplating use of barges
and transshipment need specialised software to extract maximum efficiency from
their supply chain.
S
teve maxwell, chief operating
officer claimed potential savings
could reach into the millions each year.
Maxwell said “it is nigh on impossible
for a barge and transhipment planner, using
Excel, to consider all of the factors and the
interdependencies between them to derive
and execute a schedule that will optimise
the operations, and maximise the throughput
of the supply chain.
“In order to maximise throughput and
also optimise mineral commodity quality,
consideration needs to be given to a wide
range of factors when planning and tracking
barging and transshipment operations.”
Qmastor has systems in place with Walter
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING
Energy in the USA for coal barging, PT
Adaro in Indonesia for coal barging and
transshipment and OneSteel in Whyalla
for iron ore barging and transshipment.
Maxwell said important factors to consider
for transshipping are: variable loading and
unloading rates, barge cycle time, barge,
tug and transhipment unit availability, ocean
going vessel schedules, planned outages
including maintenance, tidal, locks and
channel constraints on draft and sailing
windows, material stockpile capacities
and qualities, forecast and actual material
quantity and quality, transportation and
vessel sampling and analysis results,
customer commodity contract specifications,
Qmastor software is used for transshipment
operations for OneSteel in Whyalla.
transshipping commercial incentives, demurrage and despatch terms and physical vessel
constraints in using transshipment gear.
n
Contact: www.qmastor.com
JULY / AUGUST 2011
69
FEATURE I BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING
(left) IronClad originally planned on a 540km journey to Port Adelaide, firstly by truck to Whyalla then through to port via rail. (right) IronClad will haul containers
154kms by truck from its Wilcherry Hill mine site to the barge operation at Lucky Bay in the Spencer Gulf.
IronClad drops Port Adelaide, opts for
floating harbour at Lucky Bay
In a bid to kickstart operations at low
cost, South Australian iron ore junior
IronClad Mining will first use a tug
and barge system and later a floating
harbour based around a ferry terminal
at Lucky Bay. Mike Foley spoke to
IronClad executives.
S
outh auStralia has dozens of
developing resources companies, many
of which are impacted by restricted
access to ports. Adelaide is invariably a long
way from remote mine sites and steel producer OneSteel, which has a facility at Whyalla,
is unwilling to share its infrastructure.
IronClad Mining’s Wilcherry Hill magnetite project sits in the south-eastern section
of the Gawler Craton, in the north of Eyre
Peninsula, 105 kms from Whyalla. Unable to
do a deal with OneSteel, IronClad was faced
with a lengthy 540km road and rail haul to
Port Adelaide.
“Getting into production is our first and
foremost aim. Our second aim is to get into
Capesize vessels at the earliest possible time,”
said Ian Finch, executive chairman, IronClad
Mining. “Our strategy has been to get to a
JORC compliant resource that will provide us
with five to six years of feed. There is no
point, in our view, in spending additional
capital on getting more and more ore when
we can do that once we are in production.”
IronClad has an 80/20 joint venture with
partner Trafford Resources at Wilcherry
Hill. Trafford purchased the deposit from
Aquila Resources in 2006, which in turn
purchased it from AngloGold in 2002.
IronClad was listed on the ASX in 2007 to
develop Wilcherry Hill.
70
JULY / AUGUST 2011
The project has a JORC compliant resource
of 275mt, with further exploration potential.
Production is expected to begin before the
end of 2011, with a start-up capital cost of
$26 million.
Stage 1 of the project will see production
of up to 2mtpa of high quality direct shipping
ore (DSO). Stage 2 will see the addition
of magnetite concentrates, pushing total
production to 5 – 6mtpa.
Ralph Winter, business development
manager, IronClad Mining explained “for
the ramp up in exports, we are looking at
about one million tonnes in the first year
and then increase that up to two million in
year two.
“We will commence our feasibility on the
rest of the ore in the area from around June
this year. We hope to bring that in by the
end of year two and by then we should have
production capabilities set up to incorporate
beneficiation of the remainder of the ore.
Between years two and three, production will
increase from 4 to 6mtpa.”
Initially, IronClad was resigned to biting
the bullet on transport costs. It made plans to
undertake the only available route to export,
that is, the 540km journey to Port Adelaide,
firstly by truck to Whyalla then through to
port via rail.
Fortuitously, in the early stages of
Wilcherry Hill’s development, the company
was approached by Sea Transport Corporation
which proposed a transhipment operation that
utilised a nearby ferry terminal. Sea Transport
suggested Lucky Bay, in the Spencer Gulf,
only 154kms south of Wilcherry Hill.
By swapping the truck and rail route to
Adelaide for a 154km truck haul, and foregoing a deep water port for a transshipment
system, IronClad estimates it can cut operating costs from $85 to $65 per tonne.
The transhipment solution first came to
light in late 2009, Finch explained. “About
18 months ago I was approached by the
chairman of Sea Transport Corporation, and
he suggested transshipment out of the port
they own at Lucky Bay.
“I was right in the midst of getting our
feasibility out of the way and I didn’t pay as
much attention as I should have. But he was
persistent, and rightly so. Eight or nine
months ago we started to look at it in real
detail. To our surprise, the proposition ticked
all the boxes and there was no detrimental
stuff that we could find in the proposal.”
Finch said that Sea Transport’s floating
harbour “makes perfect sense because our
mine operations are set to progress in production over the next three to four years and we
are going to need the capacity to get into
Capesize vessels. And locally there are no
ports that can take Capesize vessels.”
IronClad is so keen to begin exporting that
it will commence by December 21 with a tug
and barge offshore loading system before its
tonnages reach a level that makes a floating
harbour viable.
Winter said “a free floating barge that the
ore is loaded onto will be taken out into the
ocean, once we have found an appropriate site
somewhere between five and 10kms offshore
to load Panamax vessels. We are using
Panamaxes because they are the only ones
with a crane that can load the containers in
the middle of the ocean.
“The second stage is to bring feeder vessels
in, which is a motorised barge that has loading
CONTINUES BOTTOM OF NEXT PAGE
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING
u
BARGING, TRANSSHIPMENT & CONTAINER TIPPLING I FEATURE
Zenith Minerals mulls transshipment
in lieu of Anketell option
Transshipping in the sheltered waters
of a shallow Queensland gulf is
far from a daunting prospect. But
loading a bulk carrier from an open
sea platform in the Indian Ocean is
an entirely different proposition.
Z
enith mineralS is in the scoping stage for its 100% owned Mount
Alexander iron ore project, located
120 kms south east of Onslow in the Pilbara.
Promet Engineering has completed a desktop study, with preliminary costing based on a
transshipment system. Zenith is planning on
exporting 8mtpa from an inferred resource of
392mt @ 29.5% Fe.
Understandably, non-executive director
Mike Joyce is more circumspect than his
Queensland counterparts. “This is what we
have used for our desktop scoping study. It is
just a development option for a review. We
have not set our heart on it.”
In its study, Zenith proposes to transport its
concentrate in a slurry pipeline to Onslow,
where it would dewater and store the product.
A covered conveyor would transport the ore
from the shed to a barge port at Onslow,
t
FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
capabilities on the barge. That has, roughly, a
$9m – 10m cost for one and we are weighing
up whether to buy or lease.
“The barge will be docked and packed on
shore. Also, the system will be fully containerised, which means the container is
loaded from the truck onto the barge.
Plan of IronClad’s operations.
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING
Location of Zenith Mineral’s Mount Alexander project
where it would be barged to an offshore transshipment facility.
In a perfect world, however, Joyce said
Zenith would export through a traditional
port, such as the Anketell Point development.
“The project at Mount Alexander is about
80kms away from where Aquila is planning a
new railway line to up to Anketell.”
n
“Once the containers are loaded onto the
back of the barge, the tug pulls it out into
the ocean. When the container is loaded onto
the vessel it hooks on the bevel and tips it
lengthways and the ore falls into the hold
of the ship.
“The third stage of the operation is to
bring in the floating harbour, to give us the
capability to load capsize vessels. We expect
that option to come in two-and-a-half to three
years’ time.
“The floating harbour will actually have
the capability to hold 90,000t of product.
It can take a Capesize vessel and can load
through itself and the feeder barge as well,
so we can meet the 150,000 tonnes capacity
of the vessel.”
Winter said IronClad has “a marketing
agreement with OMS trading out of Singapore
and the ore will be sold under a two year
agreement. We send it through OMS to a
stockpile in southern China and they then
have a range of 13-14 different steel mills.”
While IronClad is a test-case for junior iron
ore players, it already seems at this early stage
that others are set to follow suit. Winter said
“it is a multi-user facility [at Lucky Bay], and
the government has been at pains to let us
know they want it to be a multi-user facility.
“We understand in the future there will be
other companies that come and want to use the
facility, because of the lack of infrastructure in
the area and the lack of adequate port facilities
that are available in the Eyre Peninsula.” n
Contact: www.zenithminerals.com.au
Contact: www.ironcladmining.com
JULY / AUGUST 2011
71