Marine Terminals Research Articles

Guest Editorial: Ships, Trucks, and Trains: Effects of Goods Movement on Environmental Health

Guest Editorial: Ships, Trucks, and Trains: Effects of Goods Movement on Environmental Health

Planning and Designof Ports and Marine Terminals (2nd edn)

Planning and Designof Ports and Marine Terminals (2nd edn)

MUTUAL SPECIALISATION, SEAPORTS AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF AUTOMOBILE IMPORTS

ABSTRACTThis paper argues for a more actor‐centred approach in freight transportation studies, one that includes freight shippers and public authorities, as well as carriers, and that pays close attention to the relationships between these actors. One advantage of this approach is that it focuses on the conditions under which global logistics flows may become relatively fixed in particular localities. The perspective is illustrated through a discussion of the geography of port usage by importers of automobiles to the US since 1980. The need to secure space at or near marine terminals for vehicle processing activities is a driving factor in port selection. While the overall trade in automobiles has not become concentrated in fewer ports over the last 20 years, individual firms are concentrating the bulk of their import operations in fewer ports. This mutual specialisation involves a process of interpenetration between actors that is only visible in a disaggregated analysis.

Tier 1 Response Equipment Strategies for Smaller, Fuels and Lubes Marine Terminals

ABSTRACT Effective response to Tier 1 spills is key to maintaining a high level of environmental performance and minimizing the duration of operational disruptions. For marine terminals handling a variety of fuels and lubricants, Tier 1 response strategies should reflect risks posed by a site's unique combination of products handled and the specific nature of its loading/off-loading operations. This paper covers strategies for selection and utilization of on-water response equipment and supplies to meet local needs, recognizing constraints imposed by limited manpower and reduced time available for skills maintenance and equipment upkeep Because manpower needed to get response equipment in place during an emergency situation may be limited at the start of an incident, Tier 1 response equipment should be light, highly portable, and mechanically simple and reliable. Complicated equipment that requires routine maintenance and checking for serviceability may be more effectively utilized when it is shared with other companies, contractors, or cooperatives through a local equipment stockpile. This offers more frequent use or allocated costs for maintenance and serviceability checks. Where implemented, it is important to ensure that shared resources can be delivered and deployed within timeframes required by site response plans. Operations where spill risks are of higher concern, such as transfers of heavy fuels or nighttime work should be evaluated with a greater degree of scrutiny. Other activities should be looked at from a risk of human injury as well. For example, operation of boom boats could be contracted (owned, maintained, and operated) by a third party where feasible, so that the special skills required for this activity can be maintained through frequent practice. Employees with full time responsibilities not related to boat operations may not achieve or maintain the level of agility or proficiency needed in an emergency situation.

Managing Containers in a Marine Terminal: Assessing Information Needs

The research addresses questions about how intelligent transportation systems technologies that are being used to track and manage containers in transit can also be used to manage the stacked storage of containers in marine terminals. The research focuses on import container storage. The objective is to assess whether and how more accurate and timely information about the departure times of containers can be used to more efficiently and effectively manage import containers in stacked storage. An “informed” import storage strategy along with performance analyses of this strategy in relation to typical storage strategies used by ports is presented. The strategy for organizing import stacked storage is described. The study methodology used and subsequent analysis of these options regarding performance and economics follow. Results indicate that using a reservation system similar to the crescent system used by the port of New Orleans would significantly reduce import container–handling efforts. The system would enable a port operator to gather enough information about when import containers would leave the port to allow careful ordering of import container storage, which would result in reduced handling.

THE DEVELOPMENT AND TEST OF EQUIPMENT FOR RAPID REFLOTATION OF SPILLED ORIMULSION®

ABSTRACT An Orimulsion® spill will behave differently to an oil spill by initially going into suspension as microscopic surfactant coated bitumen particles in the upper 2–3 meters below the sea surface. In case of spills at Orimulsion® marine terminals or nearshore, it is important to be able to rapidly refloat the bitumen. In this way, the spill could be converted to and treated as a conventional heavy oil spill, using booms and heavy oil skimmers. Previous tests by INTEVEP and BITOR indicated that agitation, air injection, and splashing are important for a rapid formation and reflotation of bitumen droplets. This developed into the Forced Adhesion and Flotation (FAF) concept. However, besides the effect of a centrifugal pump's agitation, air injection received the major attention until it was discovered that the splashing effect was as important and at the same time simpler and less costly to employ. As a result, the PNP Orimulsion® Refloater was developed: a floating submerged or nonsubmerged centrifugal pump that sucks from beneath the water surface and with great force discharges vertically up against a splash cover, from where the water splashes back to the surface. Enhanced agitation and very strong aeration causes a very efficient reflotation.

THE DIFFERENCE OF BEACH PROCESS ACCORDING TO OFFHSORE DISTANCE OF ARTIFICIAL ISLAND

In recent years, large scale structures have been built on offshore for utilization of coastal zone as offshore airport and marine terminals. Those big scale structures, however, may act as significant barriers against wave and severe beach erosion may take place on the coast.The present study deals nearshore topography change affected by construction of an offshore structure with different distance from the shore. The series of three dimensional movable bed experiments have been examined in detail. Moreover, in order to make clear the relation of nearshore currents and local erosions behind offshore structure, the nearshore currents are calculated by boussinesq equation model with the same scale condition of the experiments.

Safety Management Assessment System (SMAS): a process for identifying and evaluating human and organization factors in marine system operations with field test results

Eighty percent or more of major marine accidents are caused or influenced by humans and organizations. Research has identified characteristics of high reliability organizations (HRO), organizations which have had few accidents while involved in operations where failure would result in severe consequences. These characteristics have important effects on the safety of marine systems. Assessing systems for these HRO characteristics is the first step in reducing accidents caused by human and organization factors (HOF). The Safety Management Assessment System (SMAS) was developed specifically to assess marine systems (offshore platforms, marine terminals, ships) for HOF. SMAS is a screening method that selects and trains operators of the system to conduct a self-assessment. The assessment process takes five days and has the assessors making comparisons and evaluating HOF by selecting ranges and providing comments to capture the uncertainty. Included in the process is a visit to the system. A computer program was developed to assist in the assessment process. A field test of SMAS was conducted at a marine terminal in California. Two teams, with members from the terminal and the regulatory agency, along with a facilitator, were selected and trained. These two independent teams conducted separate evaluations on the same marine terminal. A comparison of their assessments showed that the use of ranges and comments were very helpful. An analysis of field test data shows that SMAS can produce results more consistent than randomness. SMAS shows promise as an efficient and practical method to assess humans and organizations.

Dynamics of a moored barge under regular and random waves

Developments in the study of wave forces and construction techniques in deep water by the offshore oil industry have increased the use of marine terminals at deep water locations. A thorough understanding of moored ship dynamics when subjected to waves, wind and current combined with the use of flexible mooring lines would help to design berthing terminals for exposed areas. In this paper, the three dimensional problem of wave interactions with a barge moored to a single point is dealt with, based on the finite element method. The effect of flexibility of the mooring line and the point of mooring on the response of the barge as well as the mooring line tension is investigated. The paper compares the numerical results with model tests carried out on a barge moored to a fixed support under regular and random waves in head sea. The effect of stiffness of the mooring line on the barge response for different mooring points is discussed, which would be useful for the designers. The effect of viscous damping is also considered. The analytical results are in good agreement with the experimental results in both regular and random waves.

OIL SPILL DATABASES: DEVELOPING PREVENTION STRATEGIES ACROSS STATE LINES

ABSTRACT This paper details the process used by two states, California and Washington, to develop common reporting of oil spill causes. Many different agencies use databases to store oil spill information, but there is a general lack of standardization in reporting requirements, making it difficult to share information. Many of these databases only reflect initial spill reports, and few contain information on spill causes that could be used to prevent oil spills from occurring. Washington State's Office of Marine Safety (OMS) has developed an extensive database that includes spill and casualty information from vessels transiting Washington state waters. California State Lands Commission, Marine Facilities Division (MFD), has similarly developed an oil spill database for marine terminals in the state of California. What makes these systems unique is that they attempt to integrate reliable, accurate information on incident causes, paying particular attention to human error. Both agencies have joined together in a pilot program to share oil spill causal information using common terms. This paper addresses the approach used to establish common data dictionaries, oil spill report formats, and a methodology to determine causal information. California and Washington are currently working with other states and British Columbia to develop common reporting throughout the West Coast. The information collected and shared can be used by each jurisdiction to develop appropriate prevention strategies.

Marine Vapor Control System for the Valdez Marine Terminal

The Clean Air Act Amendment of 1990 will require many marine terminals in the United States to provide a means to control hydrocarbon emissions during loading of marine vessels. The Valdez Marine Terminal in Alaska is the largest domestic crude oil loading terminal and it will be affected by new regulations for vapor control. Engineering design is in progress for systems to control vapor emissions during loading of marine vessels. The paper addresses the basic system design considerations, special requirements, and unique features of the Valdez Marine Terminal Vapor Control project.

A Network Simulation of High-congestion Road-traffic Flows in Cities with Marine Container Terminals

Port cities where marine cargo terminals are located are generally near urban areas characterized by high-congestion road traffic. Changes in cargo traffic volumes into a marine terminal, or in the surrounding traffic arteries, which carry this traffic, can significantly affect the terminal's operations. Conversely, activity at the terminal can have an impact on the traffic levels and congestion for a considerable distance from the terminal. This paper demonstrates a methodology useful for studying the impact of road traffic flows on marine container terminals located in highly congested areas. This model was developed at the request of the Virginia Center for World Trade and was used to answer three planning questions in the port of Hampton Roads, Virginia, USA-what would be the impact of: opening a new section of interstate highway, a projected doubling of container traffic at one terminal, and a daily unit train in the vicinity of another terminal. The problem was made more challenging by limited data-collection funds. None the less, the model was deemed valid by a panel of traffic experts and officials from several major state and private agencies involved in marine traffic management. The model results were subsequently a factor in two major decisions related to terminal management. The purpose of this research is to examine the impact on marine container terminals and their associated land-traffic flows of several proposed transportation changes in an urban area of very high-congestion road traffic. The proposed changes include road projects, modifications in marine terminal growth patterns and rates (including alterations in both the types and the volume of tonnage), and non-road changes such as rail traffic, as each might affect vehicular traffic in the vicinity of marine container terminals. In particular, the authors were commissioned by the (United States of America) Virginia Center for World Trade (VCWT), a state-of-Virginia funded organization whose purpose is to study and facilitate foreign commercial activity in the Commonwealth of Virginia. They were asked to investigate the effects of three scenarios in the Hampton Roads, Virginia, area. The first considered scenario examines the impact of a new section of interstate highway on the three marine terminals in the area, the second the addition of a daily train at a critical intersection at the entrance of one of the terminals, and the third a proposed doubling of container traffic at another of the terminals. The research project was made more challenging by the restricted budget for such activities as data collection. While localities are very concerned over the increasing congestion created by the interface of commercial and other traffic, they generally have very limited funds to expend on the study of these problems. Whereas plentiful funds would allow the collection of the type of data necessary for detailed mathematical modelling, tight data collection budgets usually allow detailed modelling only in very microscopic studies, as in, for example, studies of a single intersection or road segment. In larger studies (including this one), available data usually dictate that the modelling be more general and less mathematical, such as using average parameter values as opposed to developing detailed equations for the dynamic value

Communication of Risk due to Community and Workplace Petroleum Exposure

We report on experiences in communicating the results of the Valdez Air Health Study (VAHS), which evaluated health risks to residents of Valdez, Alaska from operation of the Valdez marine terminal of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, and in communicating the results of a subsequent study of terminal workers. The focus was the risk of leukemia due to benzene. Commu nication of the findings was primarily by the external scientists who did the study. They publicly described in Valdez the goals and design before and dur ing the study, as well as after the results were available. Key to all communica tion efforts was recognition and respect for the validity of local concerns and for the special interests of the population. A new and unique ingredient to the process was coordination with, and peer review by, a well-funded ($2.25 mil lion/year) citizens' oversight group. New information was always released first to the Valdez City Council. Basic information about cancer and risk was giv en. Comparisons with dis...

Communication of Risk due to Community and Workplace Petroleum Exposure

We report on experiences in communicating the results of the Valdez Air Health Study (VAHS), which evaluated health risks to residents of Valdez, Alaska from operation of the Valdez marine terminal of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, and in communicating the results of a subsequent study of terminal workers. The focus was the risk of leukemia due to benzene. Communication of the findings was primarily by the external scientists who did the study. They publicly described in Valdez the goals and design before and during the study, as well as after the results were available. Key to all communication efforts was recognition and respect for the validity of local concerns and for the special interests of the population. A new and unique ingredient to the process was coordination with, and peer review by, a well-funded ($2.25 million/ year) citizens’ oversight group. New information was always released first to the Valdez City Council. Basic information about cancer and risk was given. Comparisons with dissimilar risks were generally avoided, but information was given about other sources of benzene and the levels of benzene elsewhere. Public concern about persistent chemicals and ecological effects led to discussion of these issues. The consultants were encouraged to present the VAHS to government scientists and at scientific meetings. Following the release of the VAHS data, concerns were raised about the benzene risk to the 300 employees at the terminal. A detailed evaluation was made of this risk which brought into contrast the different communication challenges posed by a community risk assessment aimed at reporting actual risk levels, and the workplace in which the focus is on keeping exposures below an accepted standard.

Handling strategies for import containers at marine terminals

Many types of storage systems require goods to be stacked in a storage area. The amount of handling effort required to retrieve individual items from the stacks depends on stack heights and on the adopted storage strategy. The paper focuses on container import operations at marine terminals. It presents methods for measuring the amount of handling effort required when two basic strategies are adopted, one that tries to keep all stacks the same size and another than segregates containers according to arrival time. The strategies are compared in an idealized situation. The methods should be easy to modify for the analysis of similar systems.

Storage space vs handling work in container terminals

This paper describes handling and storage strategies for export containers at marine terminals and quantifies their performance according to the amount of space and number of handling moves they require. Identifying a “best” strategy is complicated because the optimization problem is combinatorial in nature—strategies are characterized, among other things, by the order in which future ship arrivals claim preferential space in the storage area. Given a certain traffic, the paper first examines the minimal storage space needed to implement the recommended strategies. This analysis may be of use for long-term planning, helping, for example, with the selection of a handling technology, site locations, or proposed service expansions. At the operational level (i.e. for a given traffic and amount of storage space), the paper also describes how to minimize and predict the amount of handling work.

Effects of oil pollution on bio ecology and fisheries on certain enclosed coastal regions of Arabian Sea

The long coast line of Arabian Sea along the west coast of India has numerous enclosed areas and inlets where there has been a threat of crude oil pollution of increasing severity for the last few years. The oil pollution generally originates from (1) harbours and marine terminals (2) off-shore oil wells (3) oil tanker disasters and (4) land sources. On analysis it was found the enclosed regions of inlets were heavily exposed to the crude oil pollution by tankers carrying oil from the middle east oil fields to the South West Asia and far east. The degradation of oil involved both bacterial utilisation and partial dissolution. It was found that the low boiling saturated hydrocarbon fractions of crude oil caused mortality in a wide variety of fish and shrimp fry. The worst affected ones were the larvae that had deformed bodies and abnormal flexures of the tail which were unable to swim normally and most died within one day. The hydrocarbon content of the Indian seafood ranges from 0.6 to 3.0 mg/kg of wet.wt.

On—off terminal vessel-to-rail intermodal transfer and the case of Long Beach Port

The vessel-to-rail intermodal transfer of containers can be performed either within the marine terminal, called on-terminal or outside the marine terminals, called off-terminal. The off-terminal is the common way of rail loading, whereby the marine containers are combined with other, non-maritime containers to achieve greater utilization of yard and rail equipment. The non-terminal transfer, a novelty in US ports, is perceived to be advantageous since it saves on drayage (i.e. haulage) and handling of rail-bound boxes. However, on-terminal has many inherent problems the most critical of them being use of scarce waterfront land, ineffectiveness in mixing international and domestic containers, and large investments required to construct yards and rail accesses. The following article presents a discussion of various aspects of the intermodal, on/off terminal rail-to-vessel alternatives, illustrated by a case study taken from the Port of Long Beach, California.

Optimum throughput and performance evaluation of marine terminals

The performance of marine terminals has generally been evaluated by comparing their actual throughputs with their optimum throughputs. The engineering approach that generally has been used to determine optimum throughputs may be appropriate when terminals have natural hinterlands. In a deregulated (competitive) environment in which the natural hinterlands of marine terminals have become diffused, the economic approach for determining optimum throughputs should be condiered. In such an environment, marine terminals are not only concerned with whether they can handle a given amount of cargo but also whether they can compete for such cargo.

RESOURCE MAPPING AND CONTINGENCY PLANNING, PTP PIPELINE FACILITIES, PANAMA

ABSTRACT The facilities of the PTP (PetroTerminal de Panama) consist of an 80 mile long, 36 inch pipeline and two marine terminals. The Pacific facility consists of three shore-based terminals to handle tankers from Valdez, Alaska. The Atlantic terminal contains two single-point moorings to load tankers destined for U.S. ports along the Gulf of Mexico. Prior to the opening of the pipeline, the government of Panama contracted for a series of studies designed to better understand the shoreline sensitivity, marine resources, archaeology, and limnology along the pipeline route and adjacent to each terminal. Results of the shoreline sensitivity analysis indicate that, by far, the Atlantic terminal in the Laguna de Chiriqui is the most sensitive and likely to be damaged during a spill. The laguna has almost no tides, is relatively stagnant, and is dominated by mangroves (51 percent of the total shoreline). In contrast, the Pacific terminal contains much higher tides and currents and fewer mangroves [44 percent of the total shoreline, but less than 5 percent within 30 miles of the terminal]. In response to environmental concerns and greatly supported and advised by the pipeline user companies, PTP completed a workable spill-response plan, developed along three fronts: the active and continuing purchase of spill-response equipment for use at the marine facilities as well as in fast-moving streams; the creation of specially trained spill-response teams; and the delegation of clear lines of authority for both land and marine spills. The interrelated roles played by Panamanians, the people of PTP, and the pipeline user companies provide an example of how different groups can cooperatively work together to protect the environment and still maintain financially advantageous, oil-related projects in a lesser-developed country.