4
Russia
B ULK D ISTRIBUTOR
March/April 2019
All things container under discussion
I
n February, the Russian Maritime Register
of Shipping (RS) held a conference on
‘Containers and Container Transportation’ in
St Petersburg.
Speaking at the opening, Konstantin Palnikov,
RS director general, noted the RS biennial
conference was attracting an ever-growing
audience. This year the representatives of 95
container-related organisations came together in
the professional forum.
At the conference, industry representatives –
design organisations, equipment, materials and
components manufacturers, operating companies
and scientific institutes had an opportunity to
share best practice and discuss current issues in
container transport. The open dialogue facilitated
promotion of initiatives, implementation of
technical innovations and the search for joint
decisions on the development of transport
logistics and the industry in general.
A number of companies presented novel
solutions. For example, container manufacturer
Kotte-Container reported on its innovative
technology for bulk cargo shipments using a
bottom discharge container designed for
functioning as a freight car, store and grab. Safe
Technologies Industrial Group presented
transport-refuelling system for the space industry,
including using tank containers for rocket fuel
transport. ICT (Innovative Container Technology)
introduced the idea of using 20ft ISO containers
for transporting packaged goods, liquid and bulk
cargoes, with an adaptable design that allows for
changing the cargo type.
Eurotainer reviewed the world market in tank
containers which are mainly produced in China:
83 percent of manufacturing capacity is
accounted for by CIMC, Nantong Tank, Singamas
and CXIC Group. CIMC, which has the largest
market share, was itself a participant at the
conference. RS co-operates with all the big
Chinese manufacturers and Russian companies
operating this equipment.
The development of the tank container market
was reported by Unicon 1520, which specialises in
transport services and multimodal logistics of
liquid cargoes, including dangerous goods.
Infotech Baltika M, whose tank container fleet
accounts for 20 percent of the total equipment
operating in Russia, shared its experience of a
two-year pilot operation of a tank container made
of fibre-reinforced plastic (FRP). The container
showed itself to be reliable, easy to operate and
repair, and demonstrated a number of advantages
over steel equivalents. Even though this
equipment is highly sought after on the market
for dangerous goods’ transport, its application is
not permitted in international marine transport
due to the absence of necessary international
requirements. To address this issue, on behalf of
the Russian Federation, a note was sent to the UN
Sub-Committee of Experts on the Transport of
Dangerous Goods (TDG Sub-Committee) related
to introducing the applicable requirements to the
UN Model Regulations and subsequently to the
IMO normative documents. The document will be
reviewed at the 55th session of TDG Sub-
Committee in late June or early July.
A representative of Skolkovo Institute of Science
and Technology (Skoltech) stated that the FRP
application is currently central to both the
manufacture of tank containers and production of
shut-off valves from these materials, since the
service life of steel fittings is relatively short and
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they require continuous replacement or repair.
However, the application and manufacture of
FRP fittings in Russia is restricted by lack of the
required normative documents, as well as properly
calculated justification for them. This problem
may be solved by an experimental digital
certification platform developed by Skoltech
within the National Technology Initiative of Russia
that is capable of creating digital models of the
materials and products, predicting their condition
and failure probability with regard to all possible
flaws, estimated service damage and
environmental impacts.
The conference also focused on offshore
containers since the development of oil & gas
projects in the open sea has encouraged strong
growth in this sector. These containers are
distinctly different from those of most ISO series.
They are characterised by high strength, reinforced
frames and greater capacity for operation in
adverse conditions (such as reloading at sea). They
are not standardised by mass and dimension, and
so are not covered by the Regulations on
Transportation of Goods in Containers but by the
requirements of MSC/Circ. 860, EN 12079 series
standards, as well as ISO 10855 series standards
developed with RS participation and which entered
into force in 2018.
However, the national normative documents will
be developed for their safe operation, containing,
inter alia, the procedures for effective lashing of
such containers on board ship with regard to
stability calculations, rolling criteria, etc.
Finally, other specialists focused on the safe
transport and prevention of container loss at sea,
development of the reefer container market, and
the implementation of a digital component to a
container transport management scheme.
www.rs-class.org
FIBC producer looks
to conquer Europe
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Infotech Baltika M’s tank container fleet accounts for 20 percent of the total equipment operating in Russia
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27/04/2018 11:34:56
hempack is the largest FIBC manufacturer
in Russia.
The company has two modern and well-
equipped production plants. Chempack is
vertically integrated company and has full-scale
in-house production, starting from PP, PE granules,
extrusion of PP tapes, weaving of fabric (all
supplied by Starlinger of Austria), PE blown film
extrusion lines (Windmoeller & Hoelscher),
automatic liner making machines, cutting and
printing of PP fabric, and confection units.
As the leader in the Russian market, Chempack
is also gaining more presence in other parts of
Europe. The company is already supplying
containers to the biggest European producers of
fertilisers, chemicals, food and cement.
Chempack’s mission, which is actually seen in its
everyday performance, is not just to sell FIBCs, but
to provide a wide range of services and expertise.
Company engineers and R&D staff visit to each
partner site to test new FIBC models and to
provide all necessary corrections to the final
product. The main target is to meet all of
customer’s requests and simplify the life of
operators.
Chempack has its own division which designs
and installs the filling stations on the plants, so it
is highly experienced in this field. “When we
come to test our FIBCs we also examine the filling
stations and give our recommendations if
necessary. This is highly appreciated by our
partners,” the company says.
Having good R&D and its own well-equipped
testing and quality labs, the company is confident
of the quality of its products. Production is
certified for ISO9001, ISO14000, ISO22000.
The product range consists of one, two and four
loop FIBCs, as well as special products like wagon-
liners, 3-layer big bags, etc. All FIBCs are certified
according to ISO 21898 for non-dangerous goods
or UN Recommendations for the packaging of
dangerous goods.
Chempack has its own clean production,
certified by ISO22000, which passed the internal
audits of several big international companies and
is producing special FIBCs for the food and
pharma industries.
The packaging solutions can be provided in both
types – bags on pallets and bags on rolls. A
recently installed automatic RFID tag application
system makes it possible to apply the RFID tags to
any order without spending extra time and labour
cost.
Chempack has its own warehouse facilities of
more than 120,000 sqm and experienced
transport and customs departments which make it
realistic to deliver to most European countries
within 5-7 days.
www.chempack.ru