Company Announcement - Weba Chute Systems of South Africa has competed successfully against several major players in the United States to win a multimillion dollar tender for work on a terminal upgrade project at United Bulk Terminals on the Mississippi River south of New Orleans in Davant, Louisiana. UBT is one of the largest dry bulk terminals in the United States. This follows Weba Chute Systems’ original installation of a WEBA Transfer Chute System for UBT in 2002.

“It was a successful installation and the client was very happy. In fact they are carrying out maintenance on it for the first time ever during the December shutdown this year, meaning that it has been operating maintenance free for 12 years. On the back of this they are upgrading the terminal,” Mark Baller, Weba Chute Systems Managing Director, says. “We were obviously well positioned. We did compete against some of the other players in the American market, but were successful in winning the tender. This is the first phase of the upgrade project, which will be followed by additional phases for which we envisage getting work as well.”

UBT is located on 460 hectares and is the first dry bulk terminal inbound on the Gulf, offering customers significant cost and time benefits by avoiding the logistical challenges of navigating ocean-going vessels through the congested New Orleans area. It specialises in the handling of coal and petroleum coke and offers a full suite of ground based service capabilities. Export product arrives via inland barge and is either transferred directly to an ocean vessel or put to storage on a soil cement pad.

Unlike midstream operations, product being transferred directly is sent via the dock system through magnetic separators and can be sampled mechanically if needed. The ability to offload and store dry bulk commodities gives customers the flexibility to manage market timing and product blending requirements. In addition, having significant ground storage availability allows vessels to be unloaded and reloaded quickly, minimising port time and maximising vessel turns.

“UBT is essentially a barge loading and unloading terminal. Smaller river barges come from down river and their loads are either stockpiled or consolidated into the bigger ocean-going vessels. Some are not transatlantic vessels but simply larger ocean barges that will transport coal to places like Florida,” Baller explains. The current upgrade project focuses on environmental compliance and improved efficiency in handling multiple products. There are seven Weba Transfer Chute Systems involved in the project that are being designed and fabricated in South Africa whereupon they will be containerised and shipped across to the United States.

“The initial chutes are actually already in production here. The main priority is for the first three to get to site by year end, with the second batch following about two to three months after that.” The project is scheduled for completion by mid-2015. Baller adds that the original chute installed in 2002 is being modified with a new bottom section to allow it to integrate with another chute feeding directly in front of it.

“The C system side has a complex transfer tower which includes three incoming and outgoing conveyor belts, with the chutes happening to feed multiple outgoing conveyor belts. Thus it is quite a complex chute design in order to be able to accommodate the client’s required flow options.” The project is being carried out in conjunction with Weba Chute Systems’ agent in the United States, Power Techniques from Alma in Illinois. “It is the local representative on the ground that assists in obtaining the technical specifications from the client as well as carrying out the installation and commissioning.”

The belt size for the UBT project is 1 829 mm, with an empty speed of 4.56 m/s and a full speed of 4.47 m/s according to Guilherme de Sousa, Weba Chute Systems Senior Draughtsman. The tonnage is a maximum 6 000 short tons an hour, with an average of 3 000 short tons. The material being handled is predominantly minus 50 mm coal and coke with a maximum lump size of 100 mm and an average lump size of 50 mm.

Due to site specific material and operational conditions the seven Weba Transfer Chute Systems are to be ceramic lined. Baller says that the river barges accumulate water when it rains, which means the material usually contains more moisture when it is unloaded. “This was one of the factors we looked at with regard to flow rate. In 2002 we installed a cascade chute that worked very successfully, apart from the fact that any wet material can potentially block the chute. Due to the requirement not to contaminate the different product streams, a decision was taken to opt for a ceramic lining of the chutes.”

A major challenge was the fact that the new belts have to integrate with existing conveyors and structures and therefore the layout of the chutes was not always optimal in terms of the available transfer heights. “We have had to really think outside of the box to come up with solutions that will work to give the client the best possible results. Whenever you have a project like this that is an upgrade of an existing facility, often the existing equipment will restrict what you can or cannot do. Thus there were some of these chutes where we would dearly have liked to have added an extra 2 m to 3 m transfer height, but this was not available,” Baller says.

A particular challenge that has emerged from this project has been Weba Chute Systems’ sourcing or developing a piece of apparatus to assist with incorporating the belt scrapings into the main chute, as this could not be done by conventional means due to a lack of available transfer height. Baller concludes that the United States remains an “interesting” market for Weba Chute Systems, representing about a third of its business at present, with the rest derived mainly from Botswana and some from Africa.

“The one growth area in the United States has been the copper mines in Arizona. At present we are busy with Weba Transfer Chute Systems in Laramie, Wyoming and for a power station project in the Powder River Basin in south-east Montana and north-east Wyoming. There is a lot of potential.” Baller concludes: “Having more of a global footprint, which we are aiming for, has definitely been beneficial in the first six months of this year during which the local market has been really flat.”UNITED BULK TERMINALS PUNITED BULK TERMINALS PICICS 1 AND 4:  The United Bulk Terminals project in New Orleans in the United States called for seven Weba Transfer Chute Systems.