Falklands : Royal Haskoning Consultants Focus on FIPASS
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 06.05.2007 (Article Archived on 20.05.2007)
Mr Julian Hodnett, Principal Engineer and Mr. Nick van der Sluijs, Consultant Ports & Internal Planning, have visited the Falklands with a view to proposing what to do with the Falkland Islands Port and Storage System (FIPASS).
Photo (c) J. Brock (FINN) Mr Julian Hodnett of Royal Haskoning
ROYAL HASKONING CONSULTANTS FOCUS ON FIPASS
Mr. Julian Hodnett of Royal Haskoning
By J. Brock (FINN)
Mr Julian Hodnett, Principal Engineer and Mr. Nick van der Sluijs, Consultant Ports & Internal Planning, have visited the Falklands with a view to proposing what to do with the Falkland Islands Port and Storage System (FIPASS).
“Our commission is to talk to stakeholders, find out what their requirements are for maritime facilities – berths and back up land and the like - and to see how they can be best accommodated at the FIPASS site,” said Mr. Hodnett (JH).
The consultants are also interested in identifying the physical infrastructure and to make suggestions as to how it should be managed and how the development could be financed.
Fish stocks in the FICZ will remain constant but related activity at FIPASS could increase but what would be best – containers or cold store?
“In the short term, if the quantity of fish landed at FIPASS increases it would probably be a container operation. But my impression at the moment is that a cold store would be a second phase development. A cold store would change the role of the Falklands in the world market. said Mr. Hodnett.
It had been said by industry representatives that the method of transporting fish had been changing from refrigerator ships to refrigerated containers. The change would lend itself to the container development process at FIPASS.
“There seems to be a number of different opinions on this in the Islands. World-wide, all cargos seem to be heading towards containerisation. In terms of the containers – they are good here. The logistics change has been suggested to us by the majority in the fishery industry here,” he said.
The preferred method is to have fish offloaded at FIPASS and put into refrigerated containers for on-shipping to destinations like Montevideo. Once in Montevideo they can enter the global container network.
“Containerisation of Illex won’t be as important because individual vessels take their catch to a single destination and there will be little benefit from that,” he added.
Previously there had been studies focusing on the best location for a port and one thing taken into consideration was the fact that coming through the narrows was not popular with sea captains who regularly used FIPASS – or could use FIPASS.
“When we first arrived that was put forward as a significant issue. by people intimately involved in the shipping industry down here. When you speak to people with sea-going experience it doesn’t seem to be quite the issue that we were led to believe when we first started the study,” he said. Mr. Hodnett added that though an issue, it isn’t a show stopper in terms of FIPASS.
Activity related to hydrocarbons exploration and exploitation would also be taken into consideration in the Royal Haskoning study. “It is certainly part of the study and it will be factored into our recommendations in terms of key infrastructure required and in terms of back-up land required. But I think the oil operation could be a relatively small-scale campaign like the one a few years ago which was handled with no problem at all at FIPASS.”
“If operations are on a similar scale, it can be handled equally as well in the future,” he added.
There will be issues if the operations get larger but the oil industry has the money to seek alternatives. “Our commission is strictly FIPASS. There is land down there that People could be happy to make available to the oil industry.” he said.
Many of the tourist vessels are too big to make it through the narrows and most anchor in Port William. Of the 50,000 tourists who come by ship, 40,000 board tenders and are ferried to Stanley. There would be no need for a tender operations place at FIPASS because it is more convenient to disembark at the Jetty Centre. “It’s early days but at the end of the day we could come to a different conclusion when the study is complete,” he remarked.
Bunkering is rather efficiently carried out by tankers in Berkley Sound and by a relatively small tanker that visits FIPASS with fuel for Stanley Services. While ships can be bunkered at FIPASS, there is another contract with Lavinia Corporation, whose reefers can bunker ships in Berkley Sound and in the FICZ without any interaction with FIPASS.
Seeing that FIPASS is on its third (or fourth) five-year lifespan something needs to be done to seek alternatives for the site. Many stakeholders hope the alternatives will be sourced sooner rather than later. The efforts by the consultants from Royal Haskoning are helping us to focus on the alternatives. We await their report.
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