AAL Ships Berth Units Along Australia Coast

AAL Shipping has deployed one of its 19,000-deadweight tonnage, or DWT, S-Class heavy-lift vessels to transport a batch of disassembled berth and shiploader components from Queensland in eastern Australia to Henderson on the country’s west coast.

Some seven packages weighing a combined 1,412 metric tonnes were shipped from the Hay Point Coal Terminal in a single sailing onboard the AAL Freemantle, one of four S-Class vessels in the carrier’s 24-strong fleet.

Prior to the move, which was carried out for logistics provider Geodis, AAL had collaborated in the disassembly of the berth infrastructure.

According to Nicola Pacifico, head of transport engineering at AAL, the S-Class ship was moored to the old berth itself, where it was heavily exposed to wind, waves, current, tides and vessel motion.

“These conditions needed to be factored into the lifting methodology along with load spreading and cargo sea fastening,” the executive said.

Due to the complexity of the operation, a project engineer and cargo superintendent were sent from the company’s headquarters in Singapore to oversee the loading and stowage of the cargo.

“The level of engineering and operational oversight that AAL provided was not only crucial to reducing risk, down-time, and operational costs, but also provided our customer and stakeholders a high level of reassurance of a positive outcome – which we ultimately delivered.”

Check out below more images from the move. Credit: BHP.