Page 26: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (June 2025)

INNOVATION

The ore is transported by jumbo road trains which make the 150-kilometer journey from Ken’s Bore mine site to the Port of

Ashburton on a dedicated and private haul road.

scratch, and the ATB design meant that more cargo could be moving mariners from shore to ship and transporting stores. carried on the barge. The Australian-? agged ATBs have length MinRes Element and MinRes Incentive are largely similar of 123 meters, breadth of 36 meters, and a draft of 7 meters vessels, each boasting twin 1,200 horsepower engines with an when fully loaded. They can load at 8,000 tonnes per hour and operational speed of 22 knots and a 0.9-meter draft. unload at 6,000 tonnes per hour. “We can load it faster than In May 2024, MinRes took delivery of its ? rst two tran- most transhippers in the world, and we can discharge it faster shippers in an intricate marine operation that saw both vessels than most transhippers in the world,” says Weber. The round transported from China to the Pilbara on a Cosco Shipping trip to the waiting bulk carriers takes 16 hours. heavy lift vessel. Just weeks later, both transhippers were in-

The barges were built in China and are named after is- volved in delivering ? rst ore on ship ahead of schedule. The lands off the Pilbara coast (MinRes Airlie, MinRes Coo- fourth, MinRes Rosily was commissioned in March 2025. libah, MinRes Montebello, MinRes Rosily), while the tugs With regular ? eet additions came increased shipping mile- are named MinRes Balder, MinRes Bessie, MinRes Odin, stones, including MinRes chartering its ? rst Newcastlemax

MinRes Thor. The tugs provide the propulsion and also ac- vessel and very large ore carrier (VLOC). commodation services for the crew. MinRes’ transhippers and marine operations are now play- “Normally you have an elevated wheelhouse on a tug, and it ing a vital role in the project’s ramp up to nameplate capacity overlooks the front of the barge,” says Weber. “We couldn’t do of 35 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa). MinRes currently that because we had such a large hopper on the barge that we has four transhippers operational, with a ? fth to arrive in the couldn’t actually see over the top. So then we decided we’d go coming months.

with controlling the whole vessel from the wheelhouse of the From a classi? cation society viewpoint, ABS has supported barge. And that hasn’t been done in the world before. the project with their offshore engineering expertise combined “The barge hooks up to the tug, and the controls on the with their dry bulker experience. With the global supply chain barge control the tug. It feels like a ship, you forget the tug is for critical minerals now such a hot topic, it is certain that in there after a while.” the near future, there will be even more challenging offshore

Two Crew Transfer Vessels (CTVs) support operations by projects involving ship to ship transfer of dry bulk cargo.

26 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • June 2025

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