Floating Super Pallet (FSP): a smart piggy back solution

Abstract

The FSP is Dockwise’s new transport equipment specially developed for modular transport. With a lot of development in modular build LNG plants, this is Dockwise’s answer to deal with industry demands. Using the FSP as intermediate transport medium, a conventional transport is transformed into a piggyback transport able to deal with operational constraints and introduce logistical flexibility. The FSP’s dimensions are 60 m × 40 m × 6 m making it suitable to transport modules of 50–6,000 tons. These dimensions make these pallets perfectly fit closed stern heavy transport vessels (HTV). LNG plants are often constructed at remote locations that are restricted by shallow water and underdeveloped Material Offloading Facilities (MOF). The construction costs for a MOF to receive full size HTVs are often high. Using an FSP as intermediate medium deals with these limitation due to its maximum draft of 5 m. A conventional module transport consists of loading (roll-on, RO), voyage and discharge (roll-off [RO]). In the piggyback variant, a float-on and float-off (FLO-FLO) is added to this transport cycle. Although this introduces an extra operation, the actual transport vessel is not yet required at site during loading, seafastening and quarantining. Furthermore, introducing flexibility during the RO-RO operation, where sets of FSPs are available while the vessel is at sea with another set. In addition, this largely reduces vessel waiting time to improve the overall vessel use and minimise demurrage. It opens the way forward for novel contracting environments for module logistics.