AU771232B2 - An integrated bulk terminal - Google Patents

Description

P/00/0o11 Regulation 3.2

AUSTRALIA

Patents Act 1990 4, 4S** *4 ORIGI NAL COMPLETE SPECIFICATION STANDARD PATENT *4 *4 S The following statement is a full description of this invention, including the 4*

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Invention Title: AN INTEGRATED BULK TERMINAL best method of performing it known to me: CAMy Doouns\DELAHDCNODELE\DAVD\asfoms.d

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2 AN INTEGRATED BULK TERMINAL This invention relates to a terminal for import and export of materials, in particular for solid phase bulk materials.

A bulk materials terminal is the whole facility into which the materials are received, within which they are transferred, stored, possibly blended or physically/chemically processed, and from which they are reclaimed and loaded for further transport. The total terminal is designed to handle a given material or materials, and contains all the facilities necessary to handle those materials in loose bulk between modes of transport. Because of the large volumes of materials handled by these terminals, they tend to take up very large amounts •of land area. Hencer, they typically handle no more than one or two types of material and transfer them between two modes of transport, eg. between road 15 or rail wagons and shipholds, or between shipholds and rail or road wagons.

The present invention seeks to provide a terminal which includes an arrangement of storage and transport facilities for achieving an efficient use of capital and land, exploits economies of both scale and flexibility and reduces operating and maintenance costs. Primary aspects of the terminal for achieving these efficiencies are that it is designed for flexibility, for example, it may handle a multitude of materials between different combinations of three modes of transport, being road, rail and sea; and it exploits commonality of transportation infrastructure.

According to the invention a terminal for import and export of bulk materials includes, a wharf providing a berth for bulk material carrying ships, a storage facility for stockpiling solid phase bulk materials in longitudinal stockpiles, transportation infrastructure arranged between the wharf and the storage facility, wherein the transportation infrastructure includes road and rail infrastructure which enters the terminal and is arranged to extend to the wharf C:My DocumentslELILAHICOMPLETEntbulk.doc 3 and past an end of the storage facility, and a conveyor system which extends between the storage facility and the wharf, wherein the arrangement of the road and rail infrastructure and conveyor system is such that it is common for the handling of bulk materials both for export and which are imported.

Preferably the road and rail infrastructure passes past both ends of the storage facility.

Preferably the storage facility is a stockyard as described in the applicant's concurrently filed International application under the PCT entitled "A Stockyard for Bulk Materials", the disclosure of which is to be taken as incorporated herein hvby this cross-reference. Such a stockyard is intended primarily for bulk materials such as coal and iron ore which have a high volume throughput, for example in the order of 10 6 8 tonnes per annum. Preferably the terminal also includes a facility to cater for import and export of solid phase bulk materials which have a lesser throughput per annum, for example in the order of 10,000 to 10 7 tonnes per annum. Thus the terminal may include a second storage facility for handling a range of such materials which is also integrated with the transportation infrastructure for commonality of use for both exporting bulk materials and imported bulk materials. Preferably this second storage facility is a facility as described in the applicant's concurrently filed International application under the PCT entitled "A Storage Facility for Various Bulk Materials", the disclosure of which is also to be taken as incorporated herein by this cross-reference. Preferably this facility is covered.

Preferably the rail infrastructure is a loop railway wherein the first storage facility (for example a stockyard) and the second storage facility (for example a covered storage facility) are located within the loop and the loop or a spur line therefrom passes the wharf. Such a loop railway layout allows for pull-through operation of trains and for bringing them within close proximity to the storage facilities and to the berth. The road infrastructure may approximate the path of such a loop. Alternatively a railway system which provides shunting spurs adjacent the storage facilities may be provided.

C:WMy Documents\DELILAHCOMPLETEntbulk.doc For a better understanding of the invention, embodiments thereof will now be described, by way of non-limiting example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings.

In the drawings Fig, 1 schematically shows in plan a terminal layout which incorporates the features of the invention, and Figs. 2 and 3 show alternative layouts.

Fig. 1 illustrates an import/export terminal which includes a wharf providing berths for ships, a first storage facility 12 for bulk materials which in S"this emhnbodiment is an uincovered stockyard as described in the applicant's concurrently filed application mentioned above, and a second storage facility 14 15 which in this embodiment is a covered storage shed for various bulk materials as described in the applicant's other concurrently filed application also S. mentioned above.

Transportation infrastructure for the terminal includes a railway 16 in a loop configuration wherein a portion 16a passes adjacent an end of the stockyard 12, a portion 16b passes adjacent the covered storage shed 14, and a portion 16c passes adjacent the wharf 10. The transportation infrastructure also includes a road system 18 which substantially follows the railway 16 and likewise, includes portions 18a, 18b and 18c which are adjacent the storage facilities 12 and 14 and the wharf 10. A conveyor system 20 also extends from the stockyard 12 to the wharf The road and rail systems 16 and 18 include dump stations 22 located as close as possible to the stockyard 12. Also the covered storage shed 14 is located as close as possible to the wharf 10 and a conveyor system 24 extends from the covered storage shed 14 to the wharf. Also a road truck dumping station 15 is located close to storage shed 14.

C:VIy DocumenDELILAH\COMPLETE\intbulk.doc The described positioning of the portions of the road and rail systems relative to the stockyard 12 facilitates mechanised loading/unloading to principally rail and also road trucks, and second storage facility 14 facilitates direct loading and backloading with front-end loaders and other low cost means.

It will also be appreciated that the relative positioning of the terminal facilities and transportation infrastructure facilities allows common usage of that infrastructure for both exporting and importing bulk materials.

The terminal may include other facilities such as a dry bulk material tippler and bottom dump unloading and reverse loading combination rail station 26 as close as possible to the covered storage shed 14; a wood chip facility 28, located to maximise common use of the conveyor 24 for the covered storage ficility 14 and its support infrastructure; a liquids tank and dry bulk silo facility o:e 30 within close proximity to the berths of wharf 10. This facility is for free- 15 flowing, dusty, environmentally sensitive materials and/or materials to which the environment is sensitive. Examples of such materials are grains, oilseeds, meals, cements, fly ash, alumina, petroleum coke, etc. The tanks of this facility are for use of high viscosity liquids which have high pumping heads making pumping speeds and cost highly sensitive to pumping distance, for example vegetable oils and tallow.

The terminal also includes dry bulk material road and rail unloading and loading stations 32, and bulk liquid road, rail and tank-tainer loading and unloading stations as close as possible to the silos and the tanks 30 located behind the berths of wharf 10; a low viscosity and/or flammable bulk liquid tank farm 34 located as close as possible to the wharf 10, while satisfying an acceptable quantitative risk analysis and while giving first priority to storage which requires higher cost transfer systems (for example conveyor, pneumatic, etc.); and bulk liquid rail, road and tank-tainer loading and unloading stations, as close as possible to the low viscosity and/or flammable bulk liquid tank farm 34.

In a terminal according to the invention, downstream processing facilities (not shown for example mineral or other process plants which involve physical or chemical unit processes) are also located to maximise common usage of the C: ,y Documents\DELILAH\COMPLETEfJntbulk.doc terminal infrastructure to make maximum use of its storage facilities and transport loading and unloading interfaces, as dependent on risk factors associated with the materials or processes.

In designing a terminal which incorporates the features of the invention, it is important for greater efficiency that there be "right sizing" of the transfer rates and preferably maximum standardisation of machines and conveyors of export or import materials at the interfaces with transport, between transport and storage, and of major machines and conveyor streams, to balance between efficient transport costs (turnaround times) and capital, maintenance and operating costs. Higher nominal interface, transfer and major machine handling i' rates reach diminishing returns of gross capacities, principally due to inefficiencies elsewhere in the chain, 'and represent disproportionately higher capital, maintenance and operating costs. The inefficiencies elsewhere in the 15 system arise because loading and unloading operations of road and rail trucks require the handling of these trucks, and the mixing or distribution of cargoes.

When loading ships, materials sometimes need blending and materials always need distribution among the hatches often involving different grades or types of materials to different hatches. Hence, an increased nominal transfer rate does not provide a proportionally increased gross transfer rate and so the higher cost of higher nominal rates eventually increase the cost per tonne of throughput.

Particularly, the integration of the stockyard 12 with the transportation infrastructure 16, 18 and 20 improves the gross throughput rate of the overall terminal more cost effectively than would any attempt at increasing the nominal handling capacities of the interface, transfer, stacking and reclaiming plants.

The road and rail loading station 32 near the berths of wharf 10 facilitates full or partial discharge of ship's cargo into the covered storage shed facility 14 and partial discharge of cargo onto road and/or rail, or full discharge of ship's cargo onto road and/or rail.

The berths 10 are equipped, as necessary, with travelling conveyor type ship loaders and unloaders (serviced by conveyors on a common gallery structure), bulk liquid loading/unloading manifolds and/or arms, and pneumatic CAMy Documeits\DELILAH\COMPLETE\Jntbuk.doC 7 loading and/or unloading equipment. All are arranged to provide maximum flexibility for location along the wharf for a given ship to be loaded and/or unloaded in any particular manner. The berths are aligned along a single fender line, constructed to a common standard of loads to accept the maximum size ship along any portion of the fender line and sized to permit the loading and unloading of bulk liquids and solids from 20,000 to 250,000 dwt ships (covering from small Handymax, Panamax through Capeclass sizes), berthed in various combinations at the wharf. This arrangement provides more flexibility for berthing and unloading or loading of ships, thus improving berth and terminal efficiencies.

-o All facilities in the terminal are relatively located within the constraints of land availability and efficient conveyor and other transfer system layout. The aim is to provide maximum degrees of freedom in the interfaces of transport and inloading, storage, and outloading of any of a wide variety of cargoes or ***combination of cargoes, to maximise the efficiency of the interfaces with the transport networks to reduce the cost of transport and terminal handling (capital, operating and maintenance costs per tonne of throughput); maximise common use of infrastructure, to reduce capital and maintenance costs; maximise the density of the infrastructure to minimise transfer distances between interfaces and storage, and within storage, to further minimise mobile machine work and long travel, to reduce the capital, maintenance and operating costs and to reduce the required land area. A terminal as described and designed with these aims supports exploitation of economies of scale and also enhances economic performance by its flexibility, integration, density and efficiency.

An export/import terminal layout similar to that illustrated in Fig. 1 is proposed for Kooragang Island, Newcastle, New South Wales. In this proposed layout existing industry facilities occupy the area 36 (this area would not be open as shown, but would contain the existing facilities which are not shown).

Fig. 2 illustrates another layout which also utilises loop rail and road systems generally indicated by reference 40. This layout places the facilities such as are referenced 12, 14, 28, 30 and 34 in Fig. 1 within the loop C:WMy Documents'fELILAHCOMPLETEintbuk.doc transportation system 40. An alternative layout is illustrated by Fig. 3 wherein a rail system 62 for shunting between the facilities is employed. The road system for this layout would approximately align with the rail system, as necessary to interconnect common road and rail loading/unloading stations.

In summary, the invention includes the provision of efficient facilities, namely the stockyard 12 and second storage facility (preferably covered) 14, involves arranging the terminal plants and facilities as densely as possible, so that the interconnecting transportation infrastructure is minimized in length, and realises economies of both flexibility and scale by providing for a multitude of materials- and diverse industries and by maximising the commonality of infrastructure between facilities and for export and import functions.

Trf*nal .0d* Traditionally, bulk terminals tend to represent the rigidity of mass production systems in an endeavour to minimise the costs. An integrated bulk terminal .:.ooi according to the invention does the opposite by increasing and broadening the flexibility of its interfaces and of its storage capacity, by "right sizing" of transfer rates and preferably maximising the standardisation of machines and conveyors and the storage facilities of the terminal and by maximising flexibility, density, and commonality of infrastructure to drive the efficiency of both scale and performance. Use of a stockyard 12 and a storage facility 14 as in the S. applicant's above-mentioned concurrently filed PCT applications enables minimisation of rated machine and conveyor rated capacities to achieve a given effective handling capacity.

It is expected that the integrated bulk terminal will be capable of accommodating many changes in the market that can be expected over its life and be well positioned to create its own market. By exploiting economies of scale, common infrastructure and common operations, the terminal improves the commercial viability of handling a wide range of commodities, compared with handling these in smaller groups or separately in smaller scale facilities.

The invention described herein is susceptible to variations, modifications and/or additions other than those specifically described and it is to be C:Ay Documents\DELILAHCOMPLETE\Jntbulk.doc 9 understood that the invention includes all such variations, modifications and/or additions which fall within the scope of the following claims.

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Claims (10)

1. A terminal for import and export of bulk materials including, a wharf providing a berth for bulk material carrying ships, a storage facility for stockpiling solid phase bulk materials in longitudinal stockpiles, transportation infrastructure arranged between the wharf and the storage facility, wherein the transportation infrastructure includes road and rail infrastructure which enters the terminal and is arranged to extend to the wharf and past an end of the storage facility, and a conveyor system which extends between the storage facility and the wharf, wherein the arrangement of the road and rail infrastructure and conveyor system is such that it is common for the handling of bulk materials both for export and which are imported.

2. A terminal as claimed in claim 1 wherein the storage facility is an uncovered stockyard for bulk materials which have a high volume throughput, t for example in the order of 106-8 tonnes per annum.

3. A terminal as claimed in claim 1 or 2 wherein the rail infrastructure is a loop railway and the storage facility is located within the loop, and wherein the loop, or a spur line therefrom, passes the wharf.

4. A terminal as claimed in claim 3 wherein the storage facility extends across the loop such that both ends are proximate the railway.

A terminal as claimed in claim 1 or 2 wherein the rail infrastructure is a railway system which includes a shunting spur which passes adjacent the storage facility and a shunting spur which passes adjacent the wharf.

6. A terminal as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 5 wherein the road infrastructure generally follows the same path as the rail infrastructure. C:Wy DocumentsMDELILAHCOMPLETEfltbuk.doc 11

7. A terminal as claimed in any one of the preceding claims including a second storage facility for solid phase bulk materials which have a medium to high volume throughput, for example in the order of 1 x 106 to 1 x 108 tonnes per annum, wherein the second storage facility is also integrated with the transportation infrastructure for commonality of use for both exporting bulk materials and imported bulk materials.

8. A terminal as claimed in claim 7 wherein the second storage facility is a covered facility.

9. A terminal as claimed in any one of the preceding claims wherein the wharf provides a series of berths aligned along a single fender line.

10. A terminal substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to Fig. 1, Fig. 2 or Fig. 3. DATED: 2 February, 2000 PHILLIPS ORMONDE FITZPATRICK Attorneys for: AUSTRACK PROJECT MANAGEMENT PTY LTD o* C:My Documents\DELILAH\COMPLETE\lntbulk.doc