Cargo Handling

It is well known that the lightering a very cost-effective and efficient method of delivering crude oil from various locations to refineries all over the world and an excellent method of transportation of petroleum products. As the huge supertankers often used to transport oil, are too deep and too wide to enter ports, lightering appears to be the most practical option.

Of course, the oil spills are the real danger while carrying out lightering operations and everyone has to take care of marine pollution. This study sheds some light on the basic aspects of safety during lightering operations. As a common shipping practice, the lightering was first emerged in United States waters, particularly in the Mexican Gulf, more than thirty years ago. Historically, the safety of lightering operations has almost never been questioned, despite of the obvious risks arising when the liquid cargo is being transferred between two ships, underway or drifting, or anchored. But, congressional attention has been drawn to the lightering operations in recent years, by the general public concerns about the marine oil spills and environment pollution.

This publication contains some kind of lightering primer with the very basic information, it also tells the reader about the lighering ships, systems and environment, describes the most important procedures and practices, and explains how the human factor may affect.

This ultimate goal of the authors of the present training manual was to provide the readers with the knowledge about how they should measure and calculate petroleum cargoes, how they should use the tools and instruments used on board their ships, and how they should understand and value the results obtained from instruments used on board. Finally, we would like to suggest some good and practical routines to be used on board your ship when measuring cargo.

Nowadays, huge part of the world's oil reserves lies somewhere in and around the Persian Gulf. Those reserves are significant and will definitely last for a very long time. Huge amounts of crude oil will be produced and then transported by vessels from the oil producers to the industries. Usually, the oil companies seldom own their own tanker fleets. However, the petroleum products still have to be shipped and oil tankers will for sure continue to work on the high seas though today they are not actually run the traditional way and they are no more owned by the traditional owners.

Most of the vessels are owned by shipping companies and their crews are usually employed by other, managing (in a restricted or "total" way), companies. Marine transportation of oil is a very complicated task...

This informative publication is addressing the most important aspects of the prevention of the cargo shortage claims in case of transportation by tankers and contains the information relating to the main causes of such claims and ways to avoid them at different stages, i.e. pre-loading of tankers, their loading and subsequent unloading.

The book starts with the information about the pre-loading of the tankers addressing the suitability of the vessels for the nominated cargo. The charterers shall provide full details of the cargo together with the reference to its quality and quantity as well as carriage/discharge information - all of that information shall be provided prior to the commencement of the loading.

The cargo lines and tanks shall be duly prepared for the loading of the nominated cargo and verified to be completely empty of any fresh water of traces of the last carried cargo. The vessel shall be verified as being capable to load, transport and discharge the nominated quantity of the cargo in a safe manner and be compliant with all applicable instructions for the segregation of the cargo provided by the charterers and the vapor side of each parcel  shall be segregated throughout the whole voyage; in addition, the RVP, standing for the Reid vapor pressure shall be within the capacity of the vessel in order to avoid significant vapor losses...

The publication dedicated to the prevention of the claims associated with the contamination of the tanker cargo. The booklet starts with the information about the recognition of the main contamination causes both shoreside and shipboard.

The shoreside causes would typically include the residues of the previous cargoes of the tanks, hoses and transfer lines, cleaning media for the tanks and lines, impurities, fresh water including one coming from the leaking tank roofs or heating coils, valve leakage, poor in-line blending, salt water coming from the leaking pipelines etc, while the shipboard causes would additionally include dirty ullaging/sounding equipment and deficiencies of the coatings, vapor via common IGS, copper leaching utilized for the manufacturing of the heating coils.

In order to make sure that the vessel means all applicable conditions related to the cargo quality, following shall be considered - have the carried products been included in the ship's IMO Certificate of Fitness and could the different types of carried cargoes by the vessel be arranged well enough for the maintenance of the required separation degree etc.

In addition, it shall be ensured that the vessel maintains the required carriage and discharge temperatures of the cargo. The coating in the tanks shall be fully suitable for the intended cargo and shall be in satisfactory technical condition. The tanks and transfer lines shall ne duly prepared for loading the cargoes...

A remarkably useful publication with the interesting and informative content prepared by the UK P&I Club experts. This one is aimed to provide readers with the clear technical explanation of how to monitor coal cargoes coming from Indonesia; it is relatively small booklet containing the checklist prepared with the intention to provide required assistance in reduction of the risks commonly associated with the self-heating of such cargoes.

Subject incidents have been quite frequent in the recent decades and this frequency continues to be constantly rising today. This problem of shipping is considered to be primarily relating to the nature of the coal cargoes and in fact may easily get exacerbated by the ways these cargoes are being handled prior to and in the course of the loading. The recommendations related to the safe coal transportation are outlined in the IMSBC Appendix I mandatory since 2011. The present checklist is mainly intended as the guidance for the ship owners, marine surveyors, shippers and charterers, crew members and all other parties engaged in the loading/discharge of subject cargoes.

Note that it shall not be considered a substitution to the Code recommendations... The coal cargoes coming from Indonesia are quite likely to contain some significant amounts of the low-rank coals falling in the lignite and sub-bituminous categories and being more susceptible to the self-heating in comparison to the high-rank coals...

The main content of the present practical checklist has been taken from the annex to this Project Cargo Matters publication. The project cargoes commonly require specific attention at the time of their loading and transportation. The expert knowledge in the field of transportation of subject cargoes is necessary for proper planning and engineering of the safe shipment.

All associated operations shall be very carefully managed and all responsibilities, toolbox talks and risk assessments shall be agreed well in advance. These cargoes would generally require the specialized ships featuring sufficient open deck space and heavy-lift capabilities, plus some other characteristics. The best choices would be heavy-lift or multi-purpose ships. The bulk carriers are not commonly considered a good option since using these vessels has already led to the numerous cargo damage claims. A good teamwork is a pre-requisite for the successful transportation of the project cargoes.

The responsibilities of the parties involved shall be defined and prior agreed. A duly prepared method statement of transportation manual shall also be prepared and agreed. Marine warranty surveyors may also be engaged. The mandatory applicable rules include charter-party requirements, class society rules, Flag state rules, CSS Code and CTU packaging guidelines etc.

The proper preparation of the cargo holds of the vessel for the intended carriage is deservedly considered one of the key elements of the bulk carrier operations. Subject preparation requires very careful and thorough planning followed by the competent execution.

It shall be understood that the lack of due preparation will not only lead to the claims relating to the cargo quality, e.g. its contamination/water ingress or shortage claims, but may also result in the different contractual claims related to the delayed or failed surveys, charter-party disputes and off-hire claims.

The process of preparation of the cargo holds commences well in advance, even before the intended cargo lands on the tank top for the first time and there are numerous factors to be considered in order to ensure that the preparation has been conducted in a correct and efficient manner. Some of the cargoes may require just sweeping out of the cargo hold plus washing, while for the other cargoes such preparation would not be considered sufficient.

It is very important to have a clear understanding of what exactly is required; note that all people on board including crew members and Master shall be aware of all processes involved. To ensure smooth voyage, careful attention shall be paid to the cargo at the time of fixing. ..

These guidelines were developed in 1998/99 for Exxon Chemical Europe Inc., Basic Chemicals Europe by Captain C. Allport of Standard Marine Services Limited and replace earlier guidance. They are based upon the report and advice from an LPG Measurement Survey conducted by Srini Sivaraman of ER&E in May/June 1997 and incorporate the earlier guidelines for Liquefied Gas Cargo Measurement and Calculation, produced in 1987 for Exxon Chemicals International by the Centre for Advanced Maritime Studies, Edinburgh.

The earlier guidelines were adopted by Exxon Chemical International Inc. and approved by Regional Audit in 1988. The key to accurate cargo measurement based upon ship's figures depends on the precision of the tank calibration and calibration of associated level, temperature and pressure measuring devices in addition to the use of consistent methodology. Conformance to the recommendations made in these guidelines will result in transfer custody quality that is within the expectation of Exxon Corporation controls. The practices and procedures described in this document provide guidance for improving or maintaining liquefied gas measurement level of uncertainty within the accuracy requirements of Exxon's Hydrocarbon Measurement Practices (HMP) .

Contrary to the general recommendations contained in the HMP, these practices and procedures will demonstrate that quantity determination can be based upon ship or barge measurement. Custody transfer integrity is comparable to and in some cases can be better than shore systems and match HMP requirements.