Decarbonization Breakbulk & Project Cargo
Greener pathways
MARCELO MANERA / Getty Images motorway networks in Western Europe are more and more congested, we expect more shipments of project cargo by inland water,” Vermij said.
Sustainability, cost-efficiency, lower energy consumption, and fewer accidents are among the advantages of inland water transport, Vermij said.
“ However, there are still many cases where these advantages are unexplored or need justification to be demonstrated to convince shippers and cargo owners,” he said.
In South America, increased mining activity necessitated a landmark heavy-lift operation and inland transport by multipurpose vessel( MPV) operator AAL Shipping in December. In its most complex engineering operation to date, AAL transported a fleet of
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16 bulk-commodity transport barges on a single heavy-lift vessel from Brazil to Uruguay.
According to AAL, the barges will enable South American mining shipments via inland waterways and will be deployed to transport iron and manganese ore for export over 1,500 miles along the Paraguay-Paraná Waterway from Brazil to Uruguay.
“ We’ re seeing growing interest in inland waterways as part of mining and bulk supply chains in South America,” Eugene Nutovych, senior chartering manager for AAL Americas, told the Journal of Commerce.
Considered southern South America’ s equivalent of the US’ Mississippi River, the Paraguay-Paraná Waterway links Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay with the Atlantic Ocean.
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