Cargo Handling

This training booklet is a part of the Skuld training programme developed to help people reduce the number of claims and to offer practical advice on how to improve safety and efficiency of the ships. it shall not be treated as the pure scientific study; at the same time, it is not a legal textbook.

The author tried to prepare a useful and handy reference book to be used by masters and mates, marine surveyors etc. It may serve as a practical guidebook for use on the navigation bridge, on the deck, or on the quayside. The booklet was written having a number of objectives in mind. The first one was to reduce the risk of the cargo damage, while the second aim was help people protect themselves against various financial penalties that may result from circumstances they cannot control, for instance pre-shipment damage.

In addition to that, these guidelines will be useful for the people responsible for the improvement of the safety and efficiency. It is clear that proper handling of steel cargoes and due awareness of the possible hazards of different cargoes make the cargo handling activities much safer and faster. This book contains valuable guidelines on the subjects mentioned above; try and follow them to significantly reduce the chance of claims.

Incidents happening at the time of cargo handling are deservedly l being identified as the root cause of numerous injuries to people - they happen every year despite very strict industry approved packing and handling guidelines put in place. Ten years ago an incident took place which resulted in a crew man being crushed by a choke valve when it fell out of a container.

In the course of the investigation it emerged that there was a huge need for commonality of working practices/standards to eliminate the risk to all personnel in the supply chain from cargo handling incidents. All parties must recognise that they have a legal responsibility to protect all staff working within the supply chain as well as members of the general public, that includes but is not limited to vendors and service companies, haulage contractors and logistics service providers, ship and offshore operators etc. There are still several instances where packaged equipment has had to be rejected by supply chain companies and which has highlighted: packaging standards across the industry still differ, pre-dispatch checks that some companies have in place are still not robust enough, and paperwork, documentation, or certification packages are incomplete or not sufficient.

The new revision of the Oil & Gas UK Best Practice for the Safe Packing and Handling of Cargo to and from Offshore Locations is Issue 5, published in November 2011 includes enhanced section on dropped objects, cargo packing section includes information from previous appendices, new Offshore Waste Control Pack,slight amendments to Cargo Summary Tickets, new Audit questionnaire also on the disc, and cosmetic updates and paragraph re-numberings...

The present Code of Practice was developed by the ABB professionals in order to provide necessary technical guidance on proper safety planning for the operations on site. The authors did their best to produce the booklet giving the practical direction to the personnel involved in the crane works and make them achieve the ABB health & safety standards.

The book is mainly focused on site operations; however, the requirements that are set down also apply as a baseline for other operations. The material presented in the book shall be used for training purposes, and the requirements included therein, must be implemented as necessary. It may be used by project managers and sales when tendering for projects, and making the agreements with different parties. Note that the document presents the ABB's minimum standards; it bases on the ILO Code of Practice.

In case a national legislation (or customer requirements) set a higher standard, then the higher of the  standards must be used. It shall also be noted that some of the H&S risks may not be covered by this document. However, the paper is very useful to everyone willing to improve the safety awareness and get better idea of the crane operations on site.