¦PELLETS we like to see turnovers from two to four weeks.” ‘What’s very important here is having the ability to feed big ships; Storage and reclamation systems aren’t the loader has to be high and big enough to handle the capacityyou the only areas of innovation when it comes to pellet exports. Methods of moving the want to load the ships at.’ —Hugo van Benthem, Samson Materials Handling pellets from reclamation systems onto the waiting ships, as well as controlling dust, have also vastly improved, as evidenced by So how long can they remain there the U.S. Industrial Pellet Association com- Samson's (previously B&W) mobile ship before should be moved? “The jury is still mittee on safety and handling and transport loaders. out on that, but feedback has been that two is working to gather information on this isto three weeks is optimum,” Roberts says. sue and more, including whether aeration Loading and Dust Control “There are a lot of opinions out there, and in the floor really works. Typically though, Being able to efficiently load pellets onto a ship at high handling rates is essential to a successful export operation, according to Hugo van Benthem at Samson Materials Handling. Who owns the ship loader at a given port varies, but it mostly depends on who owns the storage facility—the port, a pellet plant or a third-party service provider. “Normally we find a little of each,” he says. Storing pellets at the port is the ideal option to enable schedules to remain as planned, according to van Benthem, as a pellet plant produces at a certain rate over time, but, also wants to load a ship in a very short, specific time frame. “If one wants to load 40,000 tons, the ship has to be loaded at a rate of 500 to 2,000 tons per hour; we do 1,000 tons per hour,” he says. “Even though you want to finish in 40 to 60 hours, overall it can be a month-long production.” Once reclaimed by a conveying system, Samson provides the link between the pellet conveyors to the ship loader. “Trucks are driven into a reception system and emptied, and the system claims the pellets to fill up the ship loader,” van Benthem explains. “What’s very important here is having the ability to feed big ships; the loader has to be high and big enough to handle the capacity you want to load the ships at.” The company’s ship loaders can serve Panamax and Super Panamax vessels, ships that van Benthem says are ideal size for the U.S. because it’s difficult to get larger-sized vessels in. Another important component in loading equipment is the ability to control dust. “These pellets are pretty dusty, and you have to be able to extract it,” van Ben-
26 BIOMASS MAGAZINE | FEBRUARY 2013