Mobile bagging units prove reliable in Djibouti

Richard Simon has supplied eleven of its Containerpak mobile bagging units over the past 12 years to a variety of operators at Djibouti

In developed countries and in line with modern global transportation methods, many products such as fertilizers, grain, rice and cement are moved in bulk, primarily by ship or rail.

Large scale coastal plants, smaller local production plants or inland plants connected to ports via rail networks, are exporting products using systems geared to bulk transfer.

This is fine for mass movement, but if the end user is in a developing country, distribution and end- user systems are, by necessity, based on bagged products.

Richard Simon, a major supplier of bagging, blending and materials handling systems have recognised this opportunity and have developed and extended their well known ContainerPak mobile port side bagging system to answer such applications.

The effectiveness and reliability of such systems is clearly illustrated at Djibouti Port.

Djibouti is a natural deep water port, strategically positioned on the east coast of Africa at the southern end of the Red Sea.

Well placed to receive shipping from the east, via the Persian Gulf and from the west via the Suez Canal, Djibouti is the main entry port for landlocked Ethiopia.

There is a direct road and rail link from the port to Addis Ababa and the majority of Ethiopia's imported products come in via Djibouti, including vital famine relief and food aid.

Bulk carriers of up to 120,000 tonnes bring grain, pulses (peas, beans, lentils) and fertilizer into the port and swift offloading is essential to minimize wharfage and demurrage costs.

As there are no fixed shore side bulk offloading and bagging facilities at Djibouti, bulk cargo is bagged by mobile bagging units located on the quay side.

Product is offloaded into the feed hoppers of these mobile units by ship's crane or mobile vacuum unloaders.

Richard Simon has supplied eleven of their Richard Simon Containerpak mobile bagging units over the past 12 years to a variety of operators at Djibouti and all continue to give reliable performance.

To complement these, Richard Simon has also supplied Vac U Vator unloaders and full bag conveyors.

The bagging units offer great flexibility and can be readily configured to handle a variety of different products and bag sizes.

With demurrage charges of up to $30,000 a day it is essential that the bagging units can be set up and operational within hours of the ships docking.

Each Containerpak can handle up to two thousand four hundred 50 kg bags an hour (120 tonnes) and often several units will serve a single ship.

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

The Containerpak system offers full flexibility in terms of operation and can utilise local power or be totally self-contained using an integral generator.

The Containerpak philosophy is based on a fully modular design concept where the bagging system can include all the necessary ancillary equipment such as supply 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.

Around 300 Containerpak systems are in use around the world and these systems have built an enviable reputation for reliability and ongoing performance, often operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week even in the most hostile environments.

Conservative engineering disciplines, combined with Richard Simon's broad experience in materials handling ensures that the equipment operates well below levels where breakdowns are likely to occur without compromising the impressive bagging speed and accuracy.

Back to top