Expanding the core
Over the past decade of operations in Indonesia, Rocktree has earned its position as a pre-eminent provider of coal transhipment, storage and homogenous blending services to a top-tier customer base of international traders and best-in-class Indonesian coal mining companies. In the last six months, Rocktree has expanded its service offering through the purchase of a fleet of 14 tugs and barges. With the recent acquisition of two high-speed transhipment vessels with storage capacity, Bulk Limpopo and Bulk Zambesi, Rocktree has further differentiated itself in its ability to address the growing requirement for offshore storage to meet the logistics challenges of newly emerging commodity producing and consuming regions.
Transformative growth
Rocktree started out with one transhipment vessel in 2009 — Zeus — designed to address the challenge of blending different qualities of coal offshore, without the need for a land-based port. The company added Mara in 2010, providing not only another asset able to offer homogenous blending, but also uniquely providing secured and covered storage at the anchorage. With the addition of Apollo in 2015, Rocktree solidified its position as a pre-eminent provider of value-added transhipment services, able to load not only gearless vessels but also the growing requirement for blending cargo onto geared vessels. Rocktree achieved record volume handled in 2017, in excess of 18 million tonnes, and the company is on target to achieve double digit growth in 2018. With the recent acquisitions, Rocktree intends to expand its base of operations not only within Indonesia, but also to other commodity exporting countries. “We are seeing an increase in interest from both producers and consumers for innovative solutions to complex logistical challenges,” observed Daniele Pratolongo, CEO of Rocktree. “With the continued economic development in South and South East Asia, we remain well positioned to provide transhipment solutions to meet the infrastructure challenges of importing countries, such as Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar and Bangladesh. In addition, we are also receiving enquiries from exporting countries and regions: Australia, Africa, and South America.”
Investing in its clients
Rocktree maintains a close dialogue with its clients and with its clients’ clients. Through this dialogue, the company identifies areas of improvement that are important to its customers. To meet the growing issue of metal contamination in the cargo that is loaded, Rocktree recently invested in a new metal separator system on each of its transhipment vessels, in addition to the metal detection system already onboard. The company has also installed online moisture and temperature analysers to monitor coal quality. To address the increase in geared vessels being loaded, Rocktree will be upgrading the shiploader on Zeus to match the one on Apollo, allowing both vessels to load Supramaxes. The company’s 24x7 CCTV monitoring system has been recently enhanced to include infrared cameras to detect cargo overheating. While Rocktree continues to develop tools to allow its customers to monitor the performance of their vessels remotely, Rocktree encourages end users to visit its operations, to see how the company approaches its business and to experience first-hand the Rocktree difference.
Used with permission from Dry Cargo International www.drycargomag.com