Batam to Holland

About This Project

A very difficult shipment from start to finish.
The client originally had 4 silo units at 11.54m x 3.80m x 3.85m / 20’000kgs each. The collection point was on the Indonesian Island of Batam.
After weeks of negotiations and changes of dimensions AGF Shipping Ltd were awarded the order to ship these 4 Silos from Batam Island to Antwerp Port. One of our local agent visited the collection site and based on his report it was decided that one of the Project Team from the UK needed to be on hand to supervise.
Upon arriving in Batam it immediately became clear that the job was going to be more complex than the client in the UK was aware. For a start the load site was literally just a clearing in the Indonesian jungle with a dirt road leading to the nearest tarmac road. Running alongside the main tarmac road and across the entrance to the dirt road were the power cable and phone lines for the city of Batam. Standing at a height of 4.50m, close but workable with the dimensions given by the client.
However this was just the start of what proved to be a long and interesting 3 weeks.

The site had advised the client that the cargo was ready to ship, unfortunately this was not quite correct. It would be another week before the cargo was actually ready to be collected.
The dimensions of the cargo were dramatically incorrect also, they actually turned out to be :-
4 Silo Units @ 9.24m x 4.80m x 5.47m with a gross weight of 30’000kgs each.
Plus there were now another 4 Silo Units to add to this move each with a gross weight of 20’000kgs.
2 Silo Units @ 8.25m x 3.34m x 3.57m
2 Silo Units @ 8.13m x 3.34m x 3.54m

This now presented issues not just with the street furniture, but also with the route, trailers to be used, escort permits and the acceptance on the vessel. Luckily AGF Shipping Ltd had sent one of their Project Team to Batam Island to oversee this shipment. We quickly and carefully negotiated with the local government to temporarily interrupt the power and phone lines across the site. We also negotiated with the local police to arrange abnormal permits and have a police escort available to run the route with the trucks. We also managed to find the only trucks on Batam Island able to deal with items of these dimensions.
With all these issues dealt with locally all 8 Silo Units were collected and transported to the nearest port (Kabil Port) where they were loaded to barges and taken to Singapore for transit to Antwerp.
An operation that was expected to take 7 – 10 days suddenly became 21 days. Fortunately due the hands on expertise of AGF Shipping Ltd a shipment that could have been a complete disaster was loaded successfully.