HOW TO MONITOR COAL CARGOES FROM INDONESIA

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...