Coal top-off by reloader
19th October 2011
One of our gravity type selfunloaders, MV Bernhard Oldendorff has recently completed a top-off operation, which enables US coal exporters to use bigger ships when selling coal to Asian clients. Our vessel is in the CSL selfunloader pool, which has concluded a contract with Xcoal Energy & Resources to tranship coal. Capesize bulk carriers are partially laden with some 130,000 tons in the port of Baltimore, but because of the general draft limitations prevailing in US East Coast ports, the big ships are being topped off with more cargo off the coast of Nova Scotia, which enables them to carry a full cargo of of normally 170 - 200,000 tons of coking coal to Asia.
MV Bernhard Oldendorff is one of our panamax-size gravity type belt selfunloaders, which can self-discharge bulk cargoes either to a shoreside facility or into another ship. She was loading coal in a USEC port in early June 2010 and both ships then sailed to a protected anchorage within the Straits of Canso, Nova Scotia, where they were moored to each other. Our vessel then discharged its cargo into the Caper. "This loading procedure will ensure a long term, sustainable supply of coal, at a competitive delivered price, to our customers in Asia,” an Xcoal source said. In this example, one of our Reloaders has helped to make US coal more competitive in Asia.
