Please be advised of the following information after a recent annual review of the Risk Assessment (RA) for utilisation of the North West Barge and following consultation with directly involved parties.
A decision has been made to reposition the WoolCo containers from straddling the Link Bridges between the South West Barge (AKA Wool Warehouse) and the North West (NW) Barge. This particular decision was taken after consideration of three main risk factors, which were the deck loading limits, weight imposed on the deck from the Box Loaders and the material condition of the barge. The conclusion of reviewing that process of stuffing and lifting the WoolCo containers from their current position on FIPASS, is no longer approved.
After consultation with the companies involved in this process and consideration of the alternative options, the decision has been made to re-position these containers on the North Centre Barge (AKA Centre Berth). This is the short term measure to continue with stuffing containers of wool on the deck and in the longer term the WoolCo are exploring alternative options in order to stuff the wool containers inside the Wool Warehouse.
As you may have gathered by re-positioning these two wool containers on the Centre Berth, there might be an odd occasion when this conflicts with Transhipping activities on the same berth in the short term. All efforts will be made to manage this within the operational constraints of both activities. However, for those Company’s engaged in Transhipping please be aware the configuration of two blocks of five might be reduced. The remaining two transhipment Reefers can be placed on deck in an alternative position with approval from the Duty Operations Manager. Therefore the only direct impact will be, two of the block of ten will be re-positioned if there has to be concurrent activity of stuffing wool containers and transhipping.
Please accept our apologies for any disruption to your operations on FIPASS, but we’re sure you would all agree the safety of everybody is more important than this operational disruption.
