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11/3/08
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ENGINEERING & EQUIPMENT
New floating barge by E-Crane
The Mama Mobokoli will greatly improve the capacity, efficiency and flexibility of Seaboard’s MIDEMA grain terminal’s ship unloading operations.
The advantage over other floating crane concepts is the fact that the E-Crane’s counterweight moves not only up and down but also back and forward resulting in a very small tipping moment. This means less barge movement and the result is less friction between the floating terminal and the vessel, more precise and faster grab positioning as well as more comfort for the operator and the crew working on board of the floating transfer station. Another advantage of the whole set-up is that the company now owns all the equipment used in its operation, and should things change in the future, it will be able to relocate easily, without having to leave valuable infrastructure behind. A schematic of what Seaboard’s MIDEMA grain terminal ship operation will look like.
MARCH 2008
TAILOR MADE SOLUTIONS The Seaboard Corporation needed a ship-to-shore solution for the discharging of Handy and Handymax vessels with ship-toship and midstream transloading capabilities of breakbulk commmodities on the Congo river in Matadi, Democratic Republic of Congo. As in many ports in Africa there are major port congestion problems. This, combined with the lack of new and reliable dockside equipment, was a major bottleneck in MIDEMA’s grain supply chain. E-Crane promptly started working on the problem and came up with the solution: The Mama Mobokoli (which means “mother that takes care” in one of the local dialects) is a 400 tonnes per hour midstream break bulk transfer station equiped with an E-Crane of 36m outreach and net payload of 8 tonnes. The new floating terminal will greatly improve the capacity, efficiency and flexibility of Seaboard’s MIDEMA grain terminal’s ship unloading operations. Conceptual design studies were carried out in close cooperation with the customer to determine the best floating terminal concept with particular emphasis on the optimum placement of the E-Crane. A winch will be used to manoeuvre the barge, which isn’t self-propelled, between the ship and the shore. The barge will then be used to transfer the grain from the ship into two hoppers from where it will be transported directly to the flourmills by conveyor belt.
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