Grain handling facility working hard in Mombasa

Equipment supplied by Richard Simon is playing a major part in the new GBP 40 million grain handling facility at the Port of Mombasa in Kenya.

Equipment supplied by Richard Simon is playing a major part in the new £40 million grain handling facility at the Port of Mombasa in Kenya.

The port has 16 deep water berths capable of handling vessels up to 25,000 dwt and the new facility is already easing congestion and reducing ship turnaround times.

Britain has a long association with East Africa and a chartered trading company, the Imperial British East Africa Company was set up in 1888 with responsibility for the administration in what is now Kenya.

The turn of the twentieth century saw the building of the great railway from Mombasa, reaching Nairobi in 1899 and Lake Victoria in 1901.

This provided the all important links inland and after 1900 the British population in Mombasa grew rapidly, together with the increasing strategic importance of the natural port.

The Mombasa Club became famous as the place where incoming 'types' would meet with outgoing 'chaps' to exchange news and gossip over their gin and tonics.

Kenya is one of the few countries in East Africa that promotes the development of facilities capable of handling large quantities of grain and fertilizer which are so vital for this part of the world.

Only a few ports in the region have constructed grain silos in the past and most of these have now become antiquated and fallen into disrepair.

Mombasa is seen as the gateway to Kenya and the neighbouring countries of Uganda, Rwanda, Somalia, Ethiopia, Southern Sudan and Eastern Congo.

Over the past 20 years, Mombasa Port has developed into the support hub for the import of grain and fertilizers into East Africa.

As Mombasa was not built as a major grain handling terminal, it did not have the ideal infrastructure such as the buffer silos needed to handle the high level of shipments arising from civil strife in neighbouring countries and local agricultural collapse due to dry weather.

As a result, in 1988 the port purchased four Richard Simon mobile bagging machines to bag fertilizer and grain directly from the waiting ships.

Further units were supplied over the next ten years and the total quantity has now grown to twenty.

The Containerpak concept provides the ideal solution in areas where there are no dedicated ship off-loading and fixed bagging facilities and where onward distribution can only be effectively carried out by way of bagged product.

The system uses two 6 metre (20') ISO containers converted to house the critical components of a bagging line.

The containers, which have Lloyds Register Shipping Approval, can be transported as any normal container by road, rail or sea to wherever they are needed.

The Containerpak philosophy is based on a fully modular design concept where the bagging system can include all the necessary ancillary equipment such as feed conveyors and hoppers, dust extractors, air compressors and power generators, in addition to the central Richard Simon weighing technology, be it nett or gross weigh filling.

The combination of feed mechanisms, weighers and filling methods in a Containerpak system can be varied to ensure the optimum solution for a particular product.

The containers are stacked one on top of the other when operating and maximum accessibility is achieved via the hinged sides of each container, without compromising security.

Detachable tow bar and wheel assemblies provide on-site mobility while jacks allow levelling on uneven surfaces and ensure added stability during operation.

The Containerpaks often worked five to a ship to achieve discharge rates of 600 tonnes an hour.

However, this itself made its own challenges on the fragile road at rail network.In addition spillages from the grabs off loading the grain and fertilizer caused serious problems on the dock side, especially in wet weather.

It was clear that major improvements had to be made at Mombasa Port, but it took the vision and tenacity of local entrepreneur Mohammed Jaffer, chairman of Grain Bulk Handlers.

Jaffer managed to convince his government and international financiers that not only was a new grain terminal essential but that it was also a viable proposition.

The project was jointly financed by the International Finance Corporation, the Commonwealth Development Corporation of Britain and PROPARCO of France.

Other partners include the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company in Liverpool.

The new terminal is designed to be environmentally friendly with strict dust controls and the spillage problems have been eliminated using enclosed offloading conveyors.

The method of discharge is designed to reduce vessel turn around times by as much as 75%.

This ultimately results in lower ocean freight costs which together with other increased efficiencies in the terminal provides a reduction in commodity prices for the end user.

Storage facilities are currently almost 70,000 tonnes and this will increase to 100,000 tonnes next year.

In addition to grain and fertilizers, the terminal is designed so that it can also handle other vital food supplies and it has already been suggested that the facility could also be adopted for use as a strategic food storage in the region, serving land-locked countries.

The storage area is divided and completely segregated into food and non-food areas as are the warehouses for bagging.

On reaching the handling complex, commodities can be loaded in bulk directly into rail cars or trucks or alternatively stored in a controlled environment ready to be bagged.

Richard Simon has supplied eight complete bagging lines to Gerico of France who have been responsible for the materials handling equipment from the dockside, conveyors, storage silos and feed to the bagging lines.

The bagging lines are based around the renowned Richard Simon UBM weighers which have earned an enviable reputation for speed, reliability and accuracy under the harshest of operating conditions.

The equipment is designed to simultaneously handle up to 5,000 tonnes of grain and 5,000 tonnes of fertilizer per day.The design of the weighers and feed equipment allows delicate commodities such as long grain rice, beans and lentils to be handled with the minimum of breakage.

Doug Hacking is understandably proud of his company's involvement in this important project.

"The choice of our bagging equipment for Mombasa further establishes Richard Simon as a major supplier of critical weighing equipment in the African continent.

Our reputation for reliability and accuracy is second to none and our ability to work closely with other partners, ensures the customer gets a fully integrated and operational weighing system that will operate under the harshest of environments.

Building permanent facilities at ports is a growing trend and we are well placed to serve this important market with both fixed and mobile bagging equipment " - and what of the Containerpaks at Mombasa? These will continue to provide important additional bagging capacity and can be set up anywhere in the port complex to meet specific short term requirements.

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