WESTERN Australia’s surging resource-led economy has proved a boon to shipping companies of all types, none more so than those able to lift project cargo.
New and existing mining and natural gas projects in WA are sucking in non-containerised freight at unprecedented rates, ranging from modular accommodation and steel piping to dump trucks, crawler cranes and even prefabricated wharves.
One of the companies to benefit from WA’s boom has been Seacorp Coastal Shipping, which in July introduced a larger vessel on it’s Fremantle to Darwin coastal service.
About half the capacity of the 400-teu Kimberley Rose is devoted to project cargo.
The vessel, capable of lifting individual items up to 160 tonnes and 67 metres long, has recently been loading a significant amount of breakbulk and prefabricated items from the Australian Marine Complex (AMC) at Henderson for delivery to resource ventures in the Pilbara and Kimberley regions.
For example, 4,000 sq m of breakbulk materials (piping, etc.) for a dredging operation were recently shipped from AMC to Port Hedland.
“Every single voyage, we are taking breakbulk or project cargoes for the big boom in the north.” Seacorp’s managing director; Craig Thompson, said.
At AMC, Thiess is building a 250-metre-long wharf for Fortescue Metals Group’s ambitious iron ore project.
The huge structure, along with its conveyor system, is taking shape at the complex’s common user facility.
When completed, a heavy-lift ship or ships will transfer five separate 600-tonne pre-assembled modules to Anderson Point near Port Hedland.
A number of other important fabrications have been constructed at AMC, including Australia’s first ever export oil and gas jacket, for the Pohokura installation in New Zealand.
Seacorp has shipped project materials to Chevron and Texaco in Dampier, as well as oversize machinery such as excavators and dump trucks to Koolan Island- the Mount Gibson Iron owned hematite mine in Yampi Sound off the Kimberley coast.
The first new ore shipment was made in June this year and production should soon reach and annual 4m tones.
The coastal shipping operation also brought up prefabrication material for the island’s berth structure, with the ship even deployed as a floating crane for several days to position pylons.
Pilbara resource projects are also purchasing large umbers of prefabrication accommodation modules from the AMC.
Japan’s Inpex has a proposal to construct a gas processing facility on Maret Islands
off the Kimberley coast.
An industry source suggested this could involve 169,000 tonnes of prefabrication modules, 5,000 tonnes of pre-assembled units and 11,000 tonnes of pre-assembled pipe racks.
The modules were likely to be shipped to the island by barge and transferred to the plant site by trailers.
Seacorp is picking up more project cargo business than expected from Darwin, heading southbound, giving this leg and encouraging 30% share of its overall freight.
The company is tentatively investigating a plan to establish a twice-weekly ro-ro service between Perth and the Pilbara, probably by 2009.
This article was printed in Lloyds List DCN, Project Cargo Supplement on 25 October 07.
[View all]