Project 1
Coal – Export – Maura Pantai, Kalimantan, Indonesia

CSLT operates and commercially manages the revolutionary Sea Spider Transhipper (“SST”), SST Berau, located 20 kilometers off the east coast of Kalimantan, Indonesia at the Muara Pantai anchorage, tranships in excess of 3.5 million tons of coal annually for our customer under a long-term contract. The SST Berau was designed to enable the customer, restricted by a shallow draft river system and port, to load Panamax and Cape-size vessels and access the international coal market.  The semi-submersible platform was adapted from the offshore oil industry where it is considered the most stable floating platform in waves. The SST Berau employs the SWATH (Small Waterplane Area, Twin Hull) concept and has several advantages over traditional barges.  Because it is semi-submersed, it is much less vulnerable to waves, which is critical due to the length of the loading boom as the motion of the barge or platform is magnified significantly at the end of the boom.  Another major benefit of the SST is that it allows barge unloading from the center of the barge outward as most coal is loaded in the center of the barge this keeps the coal barges stable throughout unloading.  The SST’s effective transhipment rate is 1,200 metric tons per hour.

In 2009, CSLT, together with its partner P.T. Andhika Lines, commenced operation of another transhipment platform for our Indonesian customer. This new platform is designed to transship up to 6.0 million tons of coal annually at rates in excess of 1,500 tons per hour. The FOTP Derawan is a third generation transhipment design reflecting the best attributes, design and technology found on our previous transhipment projects. The Derawan is co-located with the SST Berau.

Project 2
Coal – Import – Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA

The CSL International Pool offers a transshipment service on the North American East Coast. Using hybrid Handymax and Panamax vessels specially fitted with side-mounted grabs, hoppers and a boom for single-point discharge, CSL enables customers to import coal from the Far East in gearless Panamax vessels and be unloaded (transshipped off shore) at rates up to 35,000 metric tons per day either into barges for delivery to shore based facilities, or by direct delivery from the transshipment vessel itself.

With new environmental regulations continually being implemented, the need for environmentally compliant coal from various parts of the world is becoming a necessity. By using transshipment vessels CSL has now opened the door for this coal to be burned on the North American East Coast. The service allows charterers to overcome port draft limitations and service ports that lack discharging installations, both of which have hampered the use of gearless vessels in the past.

The transshipment vessel works in a variety of ways:

Discharging into barges
The transshipment vessel remains stationary and discharges the gearless Panamax directly into barges using its side-mounted grabs, via the discharge boom. As the barges move to the shore facility, the transshipment vessel continues to discharge the Panamax into its own holds. When the barges return, the transshipment vessel continues to discharge the Panamax directly into the barges. Once fully discharged, the Panamax will depart, leaving the transshipment vessel to continue to load the barges from its own holds.

Lightering the Panamax and discharging to shore directly
The transshipment vessel discharges the Panamax directly into its own holds and then proceeds to the berth to discharge at the customer’s facility via its discharge boom. When fully discharged, the transshipment vessel returns to the Panamax. When the Panamax’s holds are empty, it will depart, leaving the transshipment vessel to proceed to port to complete the discharge at the facility.

Lightering the Panamax and then discharging the remaining cargo on both vessels in port
This situation is similar to the prior scenario except that once the Panamax vessel is lightered sufficiently to proceed safely to port, it does so and then “double banks” with the transshipment vessel alongside the customer’s facility. The transshipment vessel then fully discharges the Panamax, upon which time the Panamax departs, leaving the transshipment vessel to discharge the cargo remaining in its holds.

Distribution of lightered quantities at more than one discharge port
Using a transshipment vessel, a “cargo pipeline” can then feed more than one facility or port by using any combination of the above.

Project 3
Iron Ore – Whyalla, South Australia, Australia

In 2004, CSL was approached by its largest Australian customer to determine the most cost effective and reliable method of exporting more than 30.0 million metric tons of iron ore over a ten year period to the major iron ore markets located in North Asia. In arriving at the proposed solution, CSL concluded that the customer’s best alternative was to load Cape-size dry bulk cargo vessels via a floating offshore transshipment system. Not only does this solution forego expensive dredging and shore side upgrades at the customer’s draft restricted port but it also enables them to load Cape-size vessels (which would not have be feasible with dredging) and remain competitive with the market as iron ore is generally shipped in Cape- size vessels.

CSL Transshipment loads up to 5.9 million tons of export iron ore into Cape-size ocean going dry bulk cargo vessels approximately 7.5 nautical miles off Whyalla, South Australia for OneSteel Limited.

Operations commenced March 2007. The transshipment system consists of two 12,000 metric ton deadweight self-unloading barges and one floating offshore transshipment barge and is designed with a discharge rate of 5,000 metric tons per hour.

Project 4
Iron Ore - Export - Seven Islands Bay, Quebec, Canada
Coal - Export - Strait of Canso, Nova Scotia, Canada

Canada Steamship Lines and CSL International, on a spot and contractual basis, for several iron ore and coal exporters located on the North American Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Seaway, transship and perform cargo top-off operations using self-unloading vessels to load ocean going dry bulk carriers for export to Europe and Asia. Annual cargo volumes for these operations are approximately 8.5 million tons. The iron ore transshipment operations are undertaken in Seven Islands Bay while the coal top-off operations are undertaken in the Strait of Canso.
The transshipment rate of these operations is approximately 2,000 metric tons per hour.

As an offshoot of this service, CSL has used the same vessels and concept in a different configuration to blend coal for customers located in the same region. By loading different grades of coal into each of the vessel's cargo holds and synchronizing the discharge via remote control, CSL has been able to achieve efficient and precise blends of multiple grades of coal. Sensors within the vessel enable blend accuracy to within 0.5%.