Bühler Grain Logistics safeguards worldwide grain supplies with effici
Minmetal / North Star Shipping - A cargo handling terminal on the Black Sea.
All over the world grain is counted as one of our most valuable staple foodstuffs. To meet the growth in demand for modern logistics systems, Bühler and Schmidt-Seeger will in future be working together, having now created Bühler’s new Grain Logistics Business Unit together.
One of the latest projects is the new cargo handling terminal for North Star Shipping at the port of Constanta on the Black Sea. The plant is primarily a place of transshipment and an intermediate storage facility. The grain is collected throughout Romania along the Danube route and then loaded onto deep-sea vessels at the port of Constanta. A total of 240,000 tons can be stored in the 32 round steel silos at the cargo handling terminal.
Incoming deliveries can be brought by truck, rail and river craft. Schmidt-Seeger supplied four receiving facilities with a capacity of 400t/h. Further there are also two ship receiving areas, each of which has a capacity of 400 t/h.
After the product has been weighed in-flow by receiving scales, it is transferred by belt conveyors to the round silos for storage. Optimum storage conditions are guaranteed by full and empty sensors, a temperature control and ventilation system and special screws for residue-free emptying.
There are three different options for loading the products. Normally the product is conveyed by a belt conveyor at a rate of 800 t/h per row of silos via discharge trucks to two cross-conveyors and on to the ship loaders. Loading onto the Panamax ships is carried out with two ship loaders, each of which has a capacity of 800 t/h. An alternative option is to load onto the ship loaders directly from the receiving areas without any intermediate storage. The third option is to transship the grain from water to land. Train or truck loaders with capacities of 400 t/h are provided for this.
Construction started in September 2009 and the first phase of construction on the project was completed and put into operation in September 2010. It is envisaged that the second phase of construction will be completely finished in June 2011. The customer is already highly satisfied: “Right at the outset in the initial phase of the project we were really impressed with Schmidt-Seeger’s engineering know-how. As the implementation of the project has progressed, we have been convinced by the quality of the products and services,” says Mr. Teodor Bolocan, Certified Engineer and Project Manager, Minmetal S.A., Romania.
