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If any one has any thing they want to know about the logistics of international grain shipments let me know.
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Jun 14, 2016 03:03
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 21:34 |
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OK I'll start with the very basics. Generally there are two ways grain is shipped in bulk internationally. By containers and in bulk. Maybe ... I should start even more basically, type and scale. What grain wise gets shipped from the USA? Soybeans, soybean meal, and corn are the big three. Generally they are going to be used as animal feed. Also big are wheat (human consumption), barley (for beer), and DDGS (a brewing by product used as animal feed). Now let's talk scale. The unit usually used to talk about the size of these shipments is MT. That's metric tons. The reason for this is because that's the unit ships use for displacement and it's the unit that will usually appear in the bill of lading.. Until the grain gets to a ship, a variety of units will be used. Bushels and lbs mostly. But back to MT. A good way to visualize an MT is an IBC filled with water. Alternately if you went "what the gently caress is an IBC?" Think a meter cubed of water. Grain stowage factors (this is different from a density) run in the neighborhood of 1.15 to 1.40 (1.30 is a good guess for corn) so 1 MT takes up about 1.30 m3 on a ship. Anyway on a Panamax vessel one might load 60000 to 75000 MT. So imagine a skyscraper of grain. A single grain terminal might load 100 vessels in a busy year. A grain port like Portland might have 5 or more terminals. Again mostly this is corn and soybeans, and thus animal feed. Mountains, literally not metaphorically, of animal feed move around the world by ship. Tomorrow or when I get a chance, I'll write about how grain goes from silos to rail and barge and then to elevators to load on ships.
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Jun 14, 2016 05:03
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That Panamax bulk carrier burns around 25 to 35 MT of HFO (heavy fuel oil) a day underway loaded doing anything from 15 to 20 knots. The ship portion is amazingly fuel efficient compared to trucking or rail. Economies of scale rule by water.
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Jun 14, 2016 05:26
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How much oil converted to fertilizer would be needed to grow 66000 MT of corn locally in a less ideal place? How much to move it around internally in the importing country? Does the importing country have storage for these mountains of grain? Is the quality the same? ( maybe I'll write about import loads from Brazil)
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Jun 14, 2016 05:31
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So here's basically how grain moves for export in the US. It starts in silos after it's been harvested. Normally it moves from silos by truck to grain elevators. At the first set of elevators it can be transferred to other modes. It could be loaded onto the rail, into barges, or directly onto a ship (often the case on the Great Lakes). From the mid west there are a couple of typical paths for the grain to take. The most common path is for it to be loaded onto barges to be sent down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Once in New Orleans it's loaded back into elevators then into ships or transferred directly from barges to ships. New Orleans is the largest grain port in the US for this reason. Alternately it gets loaded onto trains and which then go to a variety coastal ports: Portland, Corpus Christie, Sacremento, Norfolk, Brunswick, Seattle etc. Once it arrives it's re elevated and then loaded onto the ships at grain terminals. The third route is that is goes from truck directly to a grain elevator on the Great Lakes, where it is loaded directly onto ships. The competitiveness of these routes varies from year to year. When the Mississippi floods more grain moves by rail, especially to the West Coast. When tar sands oil trains take up rail capacity, more goes down the Mississippi. When grain gets very expensive because of a natural disaster some where else in the world (think like fires in Russia) suddenly all the elevators on the Lakes start running. The generally trend is towards more moving by rail to the West Coast to head to Asia. Another way grain moves for export is by being loaded into food grade shipping containers. This was a growing trend for many years, but recently the shipping lines have been reluctant to relocate food grade empties to the in land US for this purpose. All along the way USDA (FGIS, Federal Grain Inspection Service) and state agencies like WSDA are inspecting and sampling the grain. US grain is very high quality, generally speaking if it's something I'm tempted to stick into my mouth straight from a cargo hold (say barley) I don't have any issues at all doing it. I've never seen insects (but know the percentages of parts in the grain) and I've never seen rats. Import grain is another story. Stinky_Pete posted:but now I see that's just because my monkey brain can't account for how small the margins can get at that scale. Some categories of bulk carriers are being operated at a loss right now. There is an over capacity of tonnage because of the slow down in Chinese demand for coal and iron. The margin are negative in some cases. Stinky_Pete posted:I'm just amazed how it all stays fresh along the way, but I guess they time the picking for that. Refrigerated and inerted holds. Think like long term apple storage. CommieGIR posted:Yeah, diesels are incredibly efficient machines for moving things. Slow speed diesels with attached waste heat boilers were the most fuel efficient propulsion cycles for quite a long time. Recently Co-gas (gas turbines combined with waste heat boilers) became more efficient. But slow speed diesels are usually direct drive. They don't have or need a reduction gear. This is one of the reasons they started to displace steam plants during WWII. Later fuel costs killed steam. And some slow speeds can be converted to LNG, because they were designed for the possibility. It was starting to be a thing for a little bit, but with fuel prices as they are now that trend died out.
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Jun 15, 2016 03:56
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:This is really interesting. I never knew that apples had a special method of being transported, but I guess it makes sense. For apples it's more long term storage. The crop is ready all at once so they store them in inerted warehouses. Same thing happens with orange juice. They store it in inerted tanks, but with OJ it ruins the flavor and they have to add flavorings back into the juice. Killer-of-Lawyers posted:When you say inerted holds do you mean they pump the holds full of inert gas and force the oxygen out? Yes. This is also common on things like product tankers. Killer-of-Lawyers posted:What keeps the pests low in US grain? Do they have regular inspections of silos or something for that? I always thought the regulations for food didn't really kick in on grain products until they reached the mill. Good facilities, good pest management, good government over site. Also fumigants, grain industry can use some fumigants nobody else can, especially for fumigation once on a vessel. People I used to work with were involved with an import load from Brazil once. Dead animals, scrap metal, general grossness. They said the ships crew reported that the grain had basically been stored in an open air pit before it was loaded on their vessel. Killer-of-Lawyers posted:Also do you find yourself often tempted to stick barley in your mouth from cargo holds? Every time I was involved in a barley load. I home brew. CommieGIR posted:Me, I'm all for returning interesting Nuclear powered cargo ships. In fact, there is renewed interesting in ships like the NS Savannah, with oil prices climbing again, the operating cost of a nuclear fueled ship is actually not much different from that of its petroleum fueled brethren In 2008 I was actually on the NS Savannah (it was in Baltimore at the time, and in rough shape) for a presentation on new nuclear, US flagged container vessels. The price of oil and container freight rates were getting to the point where a Nuclear premium (very fast) container Asia to US West coast service was feasible. Then the world poo poo a brick. Now fuel prices and container freight rates are too low, way to low. It's very unlikely that it would ever happen for bulk carriers. Bulk carriers don't really gain anything by getting there faster. Another problem many countries don't want nuclear ships in their ports.
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Jun 15, 2016 23:55
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:As to nuclear ships, there are a few things to consider. One, piracy on the ocean is a problem, and we don't want pirates capturing entire reactors, it'd probably be a political mess. Two, most ships aren't going to be flagged and inspected by countries with high standards, like if I recall, hardly any ships fly american flags, so inspection safety won't happen as it should. Again premium container service is the first place that hits the cross over point. That mean huge rear end freeboard and hauls rear end. Those two things mean very, very. low pirate risk. Nuclear ships are not going to happen anyway. Second there are several flags of convience that have better flag state inspection programs than the USCG certificate of inspections for US flagged vessels. Some have programs made by ex USCG officials. I don't want to be specific about this and am not going to be.
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Jun 16, 2016 06:16
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:edit: Also, in the time since those UN reports, the US has done a lot of work with the EPA to reduce the sulfur content of fuel used by ships in the US's area of control. You can read about a lot of it here: https://www3.epa.gov/otaq/oceanvessels.htm Ships have to burn low sulfur fuels when they come in North Americsn waters now. That normally means LSMGO ( LSDO) ie. low sulfur diesel oil.
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Jun 16, 2016 15:10
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ReidRansom posted:That's the rule most places, while you're in port, at least. Yep, due to MARPOL annex VI. I try not to nerd out about international maritime treaties. Don't get me started about SOLAS and the roles of Classifications societies, Flag states, and Port states.
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Jun 17, 2016 04:41
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Ok so here's an example of how these international maritime treaties work. You have the treaty like SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea), individual countries sign onto the the treaty. There is a UN body that makes recommendations International Maritime Organizations (IMO), these recommendations end up as publications like SOLAS, the IMDG code, the BC Code, the International Grain Code, etc. Countries that signed onto the treaty are agreeing to follow these recommendations but the treaty isn't self executing. It doesn't become law when countries sign onto it. Each nation state has to in it's own laws and regulations codify the recommendations of the treaty. So each country basically has a slightly different set of rules based on their own laws. These different sets of rules are what the individual flag states enforce. Most of the the treaty is complied with by the vessels having various documents on board. These documents are things like the "Load Line Certificate" they get produced by classification societies and show that whatever they address is in compliance. The class societies are NGOs that have naval architects and marine engineers to produce these certificates on the behalf of flag states. Flag states inspect vessel for general safety and to check these documents issued by class. Port states get involved because they want to make sure that vessels that call their ports are actually in compliance with SOLAS and haven't just sought out a flag state that doesn't have strict enforcement. Port state inspection usually follow the direct recommendations of the treaty and the laws of the Port State. Where this is applicable to Agribusiness is that Grain is a fairly dangerous thing to ship and the loading of grain on vessel is covered by the International Grain Code, as part of SOLAS. But the Competent Authorities of each country decide how the IGC (or the applicable iteration of Solas the flag nation participates in or vessel was grandfathered into) gets enforced. Some countries have their version of the Coast Guard do it. Some have private contractors. Some have weird Not for Profits set up for the purpose. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Jun 18, 2016 |
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Jun 18, 2016 06:36
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 21:34 |
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Spacewolf posted:Grain is dangerous to ship? That seems...counterintuitive to me. It's a stability hazard. It can shift and cause capsizing if it isn't loaded properly. Grain has a low angle of repose basically if you put it in a pile the pile is low and flattish. That means that when a vessel rolls it can shift in the hold. So ships have to do a calculation to show that if does shift their max list will be 12 degrees or less. It's also dusty. Any cargo that makes dust has explosion dangers. So grain elevators occasionally blow up.
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Jun 18, 2016 16:50
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