GAC Aberdeen’s dedicated logistics and ship agency teams have safely returned 3,000 boxes of dangerous goods worth several million dollars to Houston.
Leading seismic and geophysical services provider Axxis Geo Solutions (AGS) originally appointed GAC in Houston to ship 54 tonnes of specialist seismic equipment consisting of nodes containing lithium batteries to Scotland for a project in the North Sea in June this year, and once completed, GAC Aberdeen was appointed for the return leg of the journey. After the equipment arrived in crates onboard MV Assister, a ship under GAC’s agency, special arrangements were made for the AGS crew to pack and stack the seismic nodes onto 165 pallets at GAC Aberdeen’s chosen quayside warehouse.
GAC offered several solutions for the movement to Houston, ranging from a fast but costly chartered flight to slower but more cost-efficient sea freight. AGS opted for airfreight out of Liège Airport, Belgium, splitting the cargo between two flights to keep costs to a minimum.
Operations Coordinator Jenna Deans says the critical factor was close coordination between the warehouse team, packers and the customer from start to finish: “Specialist dangerous goods packers prepared the necessary labelling and documentation, while our Customs experts worked on the complex UK to Belgium clearance procedures under our guarantee and others arranged the haulage to Liège. Everything went without a hitch.”
Aberdeen’s Warehouse Supervisor, Jenna Deans, with the valuable cargo
As well as arranging clearances in and out of port, the initial call at Aberdeen involved complex, Covid-19 compliant crew onboarding procedures including provision of a security cabin and officer, the arrangement of Lateral Flow Tests (LFTs), container hire to move the freight from the vessel to the warehouse, hotel, taxi, care hire bookings and more. Following a brief call at Peterhead for crew change, the vessel made a second call to Aberdeen for demobilisation involving crew disembarkation, return of hired assets and transportation of the freight to the GAC Aberdeen warehouse.
Andrew Cushnaghan, AGS Norway’s Onshore Project Manager, says GAC’s support was invaluable and exemplary throughout: “They proved that we can have absolute confidence in their ability to deliver cost-effective, safe and efficient solutions to our shipping and logistics challenges.”
Source: GAC