As of the evening of 9 March, the Ore Fabrica has discharged half her cargo into the Vale daughter vessel Ore Itaquai. Tugs have been kept standby all through - more as a safety precaution, since Ore Fabrica is currently anchored inside Subic Bay's inner anchorage - just off the Kalaklan light house. The early operation with Vale Brasil and Ore Pantanal was done in outer anchorage (south of Grande island)
The daughter vessel (Ore Itagaui) is towards us in the picture, and the Ore Fabrica is away from us. The daughter vessel will always be on the port side of the Fabrica, as that is where the shiploader is.
Tracking the 'comings and goings' at Subic Bay using Lloyd's List Intelligence, Vale are 18 days into the first (Vale Brasil) trans-shipment operation. The second vessel, Vale China, has been at anchor since 25th February (15 days now). While Ore Fabrica is a technological 'tour de force', the AM believes that the Beijing mandarins will be well satisfied at their handiwork.
As an aside, China's media are this week reporting that the Port of Dalian has opened it's new 400,000 DWT ore terminal. Somewhat ironic that China has been the beneficiary of the real financial investment in the construction of the ChinaMax ships, the conversion of the trans-loader Ore Fabrica and the construction of a 400,000 DWT ore port.
How many times can the ticket get clipped?
Antipodean Mariner
Commodore Research's (13/3/12);
ReplyDeleteVale’s floating transshipment hub, also known as the Ore Fabrica, completed its first iron ore transshipment two weeks ago. Transshipment took much longer than planned (it took 12 days for iron ore from the Vale Brasil, one of Vale's VLOCs, to be loaded into the 179,000dwt Ore Pantanal). After the iron ore was loaded into the Ore Pantanal, the Ore Pantanal delivered the cargo to buyers in Taiwan. The Ore Pantanal has now returned to the Philippines and is waiting to be loaded with another shipment of ore.
Another VLOC, the Vale China(AM - it's Vale China), arrived in the Philippines in late February and will be the second VLOC to transship iron ore using the floating hub. In addition, the
300,000dwt Ore Itaguai has been loaded with iron ore transshipped from the
Vale Brasil and will soon deliver this cargo to an undisclosed buyer in Asia. At present,
our sources do not believe that the cargo will be sent to a Chinese buyer.
Operations at the transshipment hub continue to take much longer than planned. The Ore Fabrica was originally announced as being able to load 5,000 tons of iron ore per hour, which would result in 180,000 tons of iron ore from a VLOC being loaded into a capesize vessel in 36 hours. 12 days passed, however, before the Ore Pantanal was loaded with iron ore from the Vale Brasil. In addition, the second VLOC, the Vale Brasil,
has now been anchored in the Philippines for 15 days.