Loading containerised iron ore from land to an off-shore vessel has been successfully trialled near Adelaide
February 12, 2013
Emerging Australian
mining company
IronClad Mining has found a cheap alternative to building a deep sea port to export iron ore.
The company announced to the Australian Securities Exchange today it had successfully trialled loading containerised iron ore from a land base to an off-shore vessel off Adelaide’s coast.
According to the company, the innovation has the potential to revolutionise the way some bulk commodities are loaded onto vessels for export.
IronClad Mining Chief Executive Officer Robert Mencel says the multi-user system is a low capital, cost-effective export solution that can be used for transhipment of a range of commodities, not just iron ore.
“You don’t have to build deep sea ports worth hundreds of millions of dollars to export your commodities to market,” Mencel says.
Mencel says the trial is also a world first in off-shore transhipment and has been designed and developed in South Australia.
“We are not aware of anywhere else in the world where this same system is in operation and believe it has the potential to revolutionise the loading of some bulk commodities onto offshore anchored vessels,” Mencel says.
IronClad is on the verge of mining iron ore from South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula.
The company plans to use the multi-user system to transport low-cost direct shipping ore (DSO) from its Wilcherry Hill iron ore project to a vessel seven nautical miles off Lucky Bay in SA’s Spencer Gulf.
According to IronClad, the DSO will be transported first by road from the mine site to a stockpile storage facility about 1.5 kilometres from the Lucky Bay port, about 120 kilometres south of Whyalla.
From the storage facility it will be loaded into air-tight containers and tractor transported to the portside hardstand before being loaded by crane onto barges. Tugs will take the barges out to sea, where a barge mounted crane will be moored.
The floating crane will then load the ore from the containers into Panamax or cape-sized vessels.
The containers are lifted from the barge with custom-made ‘rotainers’ fitted to the crane and lowered to the ship’s hold. The rotainers tip the containers upside down to empty the contents.
To become operational IronClad will need to buy two barges, a barge-mounted crane, two tugs and about 300 containers.
Today’s announcement follows the South Australian Government’s decision last week to allow amendments to IronClad’s existing port approvals to reduce capital costs for the projects.