Making room for a different approach

A container may be a standard transport unit, but loading nearly 1,600 of them onto a deck carrier is anything but a standard operation. For Solumare, a shipment from China to Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, required bespoke engineering, thousands of chains and considerable work to secure acceptance of an unfamiliar transport arrangement.

In today’s geopolitically charged atmosphere, the voyage economics stacked up. Captain Salvatore Barberi, managing director at Solumare, pointed out: “In the Red Sea and in the Persian Gulf, there are a lot of ships which cannot move. So the container prices at the moment are extremely high – similar to what it was during the coronavirus pandemic.” That opened the door to a different logistical approach.

The original idea tabled was to move battery energy storage system (BESS) units; the latest dangerous goods regulations mean these must be moved as deck cargo. However, this concept also offers a way to move standard containers.

Solumare has experience of developing container transport arrangements on bulk carriers, dating back to the pandemic. For a deck carrier, establishing a workable cargo intake meant assessing the vessel’s capacity, deck strength, motions and exposure to waves, alongside the stowage and securing arrangements.

This story was originally published by Project Cargo Journal. Read the full story at Project Cargo Journal →