Container leasing giant Seaco, owned by the acquisitive Chinese conglomerate HNA, is eying container opportunities in Australia’s mining and powder handling sectors.
Seaco, which boasts a massive 2.4m TEU fleet of containers, has already formed a collaboration with Sydney-based Container Rotation Systems (CRS), which offers equipment like tipplers and container spreaders.
Peter Folkard, regional vice president for Oceania & Americas for Seaco said “We are delighted to be working in association with CRS due to the compatibility and capability of their automatic lid lifting and container rotation system compatible with our half height containers.”
Seaco and CRS offer complementary equipment – tipplers and containers – for bulk projects handling commodities like mineral concentrates, iron ore and grain.
Across the globe, many miners are considering putting ores and concentrates in containers. While the technique does not stack up economically for the largest coal and iron ore projects, it does offer a quick route to production for miners with smaller deposits which might fail to justify massive investment in fixed infrastructure like shiploaders and conveyors. Short term leases will effectively allow miners to turn on production, using containers, at low cost at times of high commodity prices.
ABHR will publish a more detailed story on Seaco’s and Container Rotation Systems’ activities in its May/June print edition.