Saturday traffic

 Aside from the departure of the bulker UBC Tampico (see previous post) today, May 6, there was notable other traffic in the harbour.

The auto carrier Bess made a call at Pier 9C to unload RoRo traffic before proceeding to Autoport to discharge cars.

Bess made its turn in Bedford Basin, and with the UBC Tampico at Gold Bond Gypsum in the background, made its way in glassy calm waters, toward Pier 9C.

A caller in Halifax since it was built in 2010 by Shin Kurushima, Toyohashi, it has appeared in its current Wallenius Wilhelmsen Ocean livery, and the previous green and white colour scheme of Wallenius Lines. The ship has a capacity of 6,284 cars. It has been mentioned in this blog many times.

The small bulker Endurance arrived at Pier 27 from Moa, Cuba, with a consignment of nickel sulfides. Nirint Lines handles this cargo normally, but this ship does not appear on Nirint schedules, so may be a last minute substitute.

The Endurance was built in 2012 by Nanjing Huatai in Nanjing and is a 5632 gt, 7825 dwt multi-purpose, single decker, with box shaped holds. It is carrying containers on deck for Nirint's general cargo service from/to Europe, and has two 30 tonne SWL cranes

At Imperial Oil the tanker Largo Elegance (see May 4) got underway for Falmouth, UK. It used the western channel outbound. 

That left the entire eastern channel for the tug Atlantic Elm, which was returning to port after an outing to Sheet Harbour to undock the bulker Mediterranean Spirit.

 

The Mediterranean Spirit is hull down on the horizon as it arrives off Halifax to disembark its pilot from Sheet Harbour. The ship arrived in Sheet Harbour May 4 from Vitttoria, Brazil and is sailing for Montreal.

Sheet Harbour is a non-compulsary pilotage port, but most large ships use a Halifax based pilot there. The smaller ship Onego Bayou arrived and anchored in nearby Mushaboom Harbour this morning, May 6, to await the sailing of the Mediterranean Spirit and did not order a pilot.
 

Once the Imperial Oil #3 dock was clear the Canadian tanker Algoscotia moved across from Pier 28, where it has been idle since arriving May 2.

 Algoscotia usually operates between Halifax, Sydney and Corner Brook, with occasional trips to Sept-Iles, QC. It distributes various products from the Halifax storage depot. Product arrives there by rail car, Canadian tanker from Montreal, Nanticoke or Sarnia and on foreign flag tanker, from Antwerp as in the case of the Largo Elegance.

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Make Room

Unloading the ship Onego Bayou at Pier 27 has been a laborious process. It has probably been made more so by cold weather and snow since the ship's arrival February 21. The cargo of rails that the ship is delivering for CN must be craned off the ship in small bundles 12m (39 ft) long, then stockpiled on the dock, much liked stacked lumber, to be held until needed by CN. It is then loaded on special rail cars and sent to Winnipeg for welding into continuous welded rail (CWR) ribbons to North American standard 400m (1/4 mile) lengths. [See Shipfax for February 22 .]

Today, February 28, with draft barely reduced since it arrived, the ship moved out to anchor to free up berth space for another ship.

That other ship is the Puka - the oft renamed Nirint Line vessel, with a cargo of nickel sulfides from Cuba. See November 25, 2022  Shipfax post. (It has sailed for Nirint as Trinitas, Hollandia and Nirint Hollandia).

Puka's cargo for Halifax consists mostly of bulk bags (approximately 1m x 1m x 1m / 33" x 33" x 40") which must also be craned off the ship in groups. Once on the dock the bags can be forklifted for storage in the transit shed or loaded onto waiting railway gondolas for shipment to Fort Saskatchewan, AB.

Unfortunately the port now has only one berth for breakbulk shipments like the steel rail or concentrates where a large laydown area is needed and a number of  rail cars must be accommodated. Richmond terminal (Piers 9 to 9C) does not have enough laydown area to store the rails, nor rail siding capacity for either cargo (besides being very awkward for rail access). Pier 30-31 was decommissioned as part of the southend container terminal expansion, leaving Pier 27 as the only remaining open pier. The other Ocean Terminal piers do not have overhead clearance for cranes because of grain galleries.

While the rail and concentrates break bulk cargo may not have the profitability and scale of container traffic, it is an important and regular part of the port's business and having only one berth will inevitably lead to conflicting demand such as it did today.

Puka is expected to complete unloading tomorrow by late tomorrow March 1, allowing Onego Bayou to move back to the berth on March 2.

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Steel and Oil and Gypsum

 The general cargo ship Onego Bayou arrived late Tuesday afternoon February 21 with another consignment of rail for CN. The rail comes from the Polish port of Szczecin, but in this case not directly. 

Onego Bayou at Pier 28 (February 22).

After loading the steel January 21 -30, the ship used the Kiel Canal to shortcut the trip to the North Sea. However once clear at Brunsbuttel, the ship made a left turn and sailed up the Elbe to Bremen where it took on some wind turbine components on February 1. It then proceeded to Saint John, NB, arriving February 18. 

Intrepid ship photographer "andrecas" posted a series of excellent photos showing the ship arriving in Saint John, which he posted on Shipspotting.com at:

 https://www.shipspotting.com/photos/3532650?navList=latestPhotos18

After offloading the turbine components it sailed for Halifax February 20.

Construction of the ship was started in 2007 by Yichang Shipyard in China, and completed by Damen, Gorinchem. The 7878 gt, 11,087 dwt ship was fitted with a pair of 80 tonne capacity cranes that can be paired for a 150 tonne lift.  Originally named Uta it became Marmakira in 2014 and Onego Bayou in 2018.

Another February 21 arrival was the tanker Lumen N with cargo for the Nova Scotia Power Corporation's Tufts Cove generating station.

Tying  up at the red and white stacks on the Narrows opposite Pier 9, it was not immediately obvious that the ship is somewhat larger than the usual product tankers we see in Halifax. Built as Ice Blade in 2008 by STX Shipbuilding Co in Jinhae, South Korea, the ship is classed as a LongRange 1 product tanker, measuring 38,955 gt, 63,599 dwt.  The MidRange types that bring refined product to Halifax are in the 50,000 dwt size.

As befitting a DNV Ice class 1A ship it also has a fully enclosed bridge. The ship was acquired and renamed Lumen N in 2013 by Navios Tanker Management Inc, part of the Navios Group, which currently operates 32 tankers of various sizes.

The large "N" on the funnel points to the interesting Navios Group, owned by Angeliki Frangou, a modern day shipping "tycoon". See the Wikipedia page:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angeliki_Frangou

While both the ships mentioned above were busy unloading, the bulk carrier CSL Tacoma has been anchored in Bedford Basin since February 20 waiting to load gypsum.

The stockpile of raw gypsum ore at Gold Bond's dock is rarely as low as it appeared today (February 22). A daily train usually delivers more ore to the site every day, but there has apparently been a hold up. Demand for gypsum is relatively brisk these days, with an average of about a ship a week.The last ship was Rt. Hon. Paul E. Martin on February 13-14, so there has been time to replenish the stockpile under normal conditions.

(above) The much diminished gypsum stockpile (February 20, 2023).

(below) A normal single pile, but there are often two or three piles.(September 5, 2022)

 

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