Rickmers ships Swedish steel works to Indonesia

Since containers were introduced onto the shipping scene, they have increasingly dominated the liner trades. However, demand remains strong for services to carry the huge assortment of cargoes which either do not fit into containers or are better carried in so called conventional vessels. This demand for scheduled breakbulk services is being met by Hamburg-based Rickmers, the global project liner and heavy lift specialist. The importance of this niche market was illustrated recently with the shipment of a secondhand universal rolling mill from Lule, in the north of Sweden, to Surabaya, Indonesia by the 31,507 dwt Rickmers Tianjin.

The shipper was Monex International of Stockholm, with HCE Hafen- und Containerspedition Engelken of Hamburg overseeing the freight forwarding operation. Rickmers Tianjin arrived at the Port of Lule on 2 December and began loading the cargo later that same afternoon, with the vessel departing 16 December. She is due to arrive in Indonesia in mid-January 2002.

On-board equipment capable of lifting 450 tonnes, together with local port workers and the vessel’s experienced crew, ensured the consignment of nearly 10,000 freight tonnes of cargo was safely lifted, stowed and secured on board.

The cargo needed very careful stowing as many of the pieces were awkward in shape and very heavy. A breakdown of the cargo loaded reveals 164 lifts of between 20 and 60 tonnes and nine heavy lifts between 60 and 100 tonnes. There was also 2,458 tonnes of containerised cargo stowed in 118 x 20 ft and 8 x 40 ft containers. The total weight of the cargo amounted to 6,739 tonnes, equivalent to 9,735 freight tonnes. (NB: One freight tonne equals one metric tonne in weight or one cubic metre, whichever is the greater for a given piece of cargo.)

Andreas Elger, General Marketing Manager at Rickmers, comments on Rickmers’ approach to such shipments:

“Our Round the World (RTW) liner service is flexible in its approach in as much as we will always give consideration to a client’s request to call at an outport when we can do this without upsetting our global schedule. Our customers appreciate the fact that our aim is always to tailor our service as near as possible to their requirements both in terms of the physical operation and rate.

“This arrangement applies to inducement cargoes such as the shipment from Lule?, but even to far smaller consignments. Demand for breakbulk services like this one to Surabaya is high and we are striving to offer the customer unrivalled service in this field.”

Rickmers’ liner service is currently undergoing an upgrade, with nine new ships being phased in during 2002/3. Each ship is equipped with four cranes, including two 320 tonne cranes which can be combined to provide a single lift capability of 640 tonnes, meaning these ships are perfectly suited for project shipments.

Mr Elger goes on to say:

“Rickmers will be implementing a new tagline, ‘The Smart Line’, in 2002 to signal not only the updating of the company’s hardware, but also its forward-moving approach to liner shipping with the emphasis on customer needs, reliability and cargo security.”