November/December 2018
B ULK D ISTRIBUTOR
Intermodal
5
Tanks make sure animals are well-nourished
T
ank containers are at the heart of a new
intermodal operation in South East
France.
Adisseo, a maker of food additives and
nutritional solutions for animals, is piloting two
logistics operations based on the inland port of
Vienne-Sud Salaise/Sablons in conjunction with
the Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie (CCI)
Nord Isère, which manages the site.
The port abuts the River Rhone offering direct
waterway access to the Mediterranean via Port of
Marseilles.
The industrial group has five production sites, of
which two are in the department of Isère (Les
Roches and Roussillon), dedicated to the
production of methionine, an amino acid essential
for animal growth.
Producing methionine is a complex process
requiring several inputs - sulphur, methanol,
ammonia, propylene, sulphuric acid and energy in
the form of gas. The two Adisseo sites are just
11km apart and in a small cluster that, happily,
includes major chemical operators.
Raw materials and intermediates have to be
available in quantity and on time, since the plant
runs 24/7 each day of the year. This can be
complicated since raw material storage capacities
are limited, and so logistics and supply chain
management are big issues.
The French sites produce an intermediate form
of methionine which is sent to the firm’s factory in
Burgos, Spain for final synthesis into marketable
methionine liquid.
Adisseo has for some years shipped the
intermediate product in containers by rail.
However, as Laurent Moreau, Adisseo’s supply
chain manager, diplomatically put it, the company
started looking at ways to “mitigate the hazards
of using rail”. Service reliability of rail freight in
France is often not what it should be, sometimes
hit by nationwide strikes but mostly by last minute
diversion of drivers away from freight to
passenger trains to cover staff shortages.
“So we sought an alternative and
complementary solution: loading tank containers
bound for Barcelona,” Moreau added. Adisseo
used forwarding and logistics firm Transitainer to
work on the project, and set up a logistics solution
with CCI Nord Isère.
Having trialled the system since late 2017, a new
regular service was inaugurated on 13 September
this year. At the ceremony a statement from CCI
Nord Isère, said: “The multimodal platform has
been able to propose a customised logistics
solution for Adisseo: the loading of tank
containers to reach Barcelona, according to very
precise and ambitious specifications. Beyond the
transport solution, it is also a sustainable and
economic solution that should reduce by 10
percent the costs of transporting products to
Spain with identical delivery times to the rail
service.”
Interestingly, the idea for shipping product in
tanks by river vessel arose from a more
conventional bulk solution.
“Everything started with a request from one of
our customers, which wanted to optimise the
reception of sulphate,” Moreau explained. At the
Adisseo sites, the production of methionine
generates a by-product, sodium sulphate, which is
sold and transported to the customer’s site.
“We set out the specifications to CCI Nord Isère,
which found a provider (Transitainer) capable of
supplying a fluvio-maritime boat with a large load,
in this case capable of transporting 1,300 tonnes
of sodium sulphate. The logistics approach
convinced our customers,” Moreau said.
From the factory to the port, local carriers
transport the sulphate by way of shuttle trips. The
product is then temporarily stored on site before
being loaded onto the vessel.
A bulk vessel made the passage from Salaise to
the Egyptian city of Alexandria in nine days. “The
assessment was very positive,” noted Moreau.
“The solution is interesting for the customer and
for Adisseo, which optimises its transport costs
and reduces its environmental impact, as the total
journey saves some 16 tonnes of CO2 emissions,
which represents a reduction of more than 50
percent compared to road transport.”
DB marks 10th
anniversary of
China-Europe
Adisseo’s sites in Isère - Les Roches and Roussillon – are dedicated to the
production of methionine, an amino acid essential for animal growth
B ULK D ISTRIBUTOR
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F
rom one to over 3,600 trains in 10 years;
train services to and from China have
grown rapidly in the decade since they began.
The number of containers transported between
Europe and Asia has seen a consistent rise.
German operator Deutsche Bahn (DB) is making
strides towards its goal of transporting 100,000
standard containers a year by 2020 and expects to
reach the 90,000 before the end of 2018.
DB has established a new unit, DB Cargo
Eurasia, to shift more traffic between Europe and
Asia to rail over the long term. The new unit will
operate service to and from China and will handle
all of the related activities at the group. A
dedicated office opened in Shanghai in August for
this purpose.
“What began with a single train on 6 October
2008, has long since become a success story,”
said Alexander Doll, member of the DB
Management Board for freight transport and
logistics. “Our new sales unit, DB Cargo Eurasia, is
helping us offer even more products and services
and improve our productivity. Starting this
autumn, we will be testing a sea link between
Kaliningrad and Rostock in response to many
customer requests. This will allow us to distribute
goods from the Baltic Sea port to the rest of
Europe more quickly and with greater flexibility.”
The way the rail companies involved exchange
electronic data will also be improved for greater
efficiency. Doll, Vyacheslav Pavlovskiy, deputy CEO
Tank container carrying intermediate methionine are loaded at
Vienne-Sud Salaise/Sablons for onward carriage to Barcelona
DB has offered regular service between China and Germany since 2011
of Russian Railways RZD, and DB Cargo Polska
signed a bilateral agreement to this end in
Potsdam in September.
Everything from clothing, paper and consumer
goods to electronics and parts for various industry
segments have been transported on the Trans-
Eurasian corridor in the past 10 years. With an
average journey time of 14-16 days, it is faster
than sea transport and less expensive than air.
And while customers previously needed to book
an entire block train, they now have the option of
having individual containers and even individual
packages transported on any train.
The first container was shipped on the Trans-
Siberian Railway back in 1973. The first regular
scheduled container train, loaded with computers,
travelled from Xiangtang to Hamburg in October
2008. DB has offered regular service between
China and Germany since 2011.
Moreover, cargos have been expanded beyond
high value consumer products. In May last year, a
new service saw 2,000 tonnes of BDO, a chemical
mainly used as a solvent in the manufacture of
plastics, medicine, and cosmetics, carried in
Bertschi tank containers from the Western China
province of Xinjiang for Ludwigshafen, Germany.
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