Ship-to-ship bunkering service way overdue in False Bay
INFORMATION gleaned late on Wednesday night indicated that the very large ore-carrier Stellar Cosmo is unlikely to anchor off the Cape to effect generator repairs or to take bunkers via a ship-to-ship operation.
Instead, she was well south of the Cape on a great circle route to Singapore, where she will bunker.
The 261 310 ton-deadweight Stella Cosmo was en route from Brazil to China when another of the fleet, Stellar Daisy, sank some 1 700 nautical miles west of Cape Town. She was diverted to the scene to assist in the search for survivors, but, when the search was called off, she resumed her voyage to China.
Her consort, Stellar Unicorn, has been anchored off the Green Point lighthouse for 11 days while cracks in her side plating are patched temporarily to enable her to continue her voyage to China with Brazilian iron ore. Local engineers have installed a cofferdam to enable the major repair to be done by Korean welders brought in for the job. She is a Korean-owned vessel.
So that they can load a bit more cargo, ships often take just enough fuel to reach a convenient bunker port en route to their discharge port. A determining factor for this practice is the price of fuel at the bunker port.
About 22 years ago, P&O brought to Cape Town their container ships that had been on the UK-Suez-Fremantle service, a voyage that is about two days’ steaming shorter than coming via the Cape. P&O folks had done their sums and found that, if their ships used the Cape route with a bunker stop at Cape Town rather than steam directly to Fremantle in Australia, they could load additional containers in Southampton and, of course, gain the added revenue from those extra containers.
In addition, as they avoided paying the high Suez tariffs, the cost of the extra two days’ steaming (including the costs of the Cape Town call) was far less than the sum of the extra revenue and the saving on not paying canal tariffs.
Thus ship spotters had the pleasure of seeing ships like Resolution Bay, Mairangi Bay, New Zealand Pacific and their consorts in Cape Town. More importantly, the ships’ agent, bunker suppliers, chandlers and other service providers – including the port itself – gained from the vessels’ calls.
Like the container ships on the regular South African trade, these German-built P&O vessels were magnificent for their time. Their twin eight-cylinder MAN engines produced nearly 54 000 break horsepower to drive them along at 23 knots. They had capacity for 2 000 teu, with 1 300 plug-points for refrigerated containers, making them useful to carry high-tariff meat and fruit exports from Australasia.
After calls at three Australian ports and at Wellington, New Zealand, the ships returned to the UK via Cape Horn, a most interesting passage for their six passengers.
And the lessons from these stories? What if a large vessel passing the Cape requires urgent underwater repairs, or a shaft pulled? Despite calls dating back to 1968 when a Dutch shipbuilder wanted to build a large dry dock at Saldanha Bay, the nearest such structures lie thousands of nautical miles away at Bahrain, Singapore and Lisbon!
Way-port bunkering arrangements can bring mega-dollars this way. The successful Algoa Bay ship-to-ship bunkering service is to be expanded with an additional operation. Now let’s amend the rules so that similar services can be offered in False Bay!
And what of those folks who enjoyed such leisurely voyages aboard the P&O container ships? Sadly, no container ships on regular South African services carry passengers.