HIGHLY DETAILED niche marketing is taking place in the tank-tainer industry, as operators search for growth areas previously restricted by regulatory specifications.
According to Malcolm Drysdale, managing director of M&S Shipping, demand for tank-tainer shipment of certain liquid products might be identified, but the market is remaining unexplored due to a lack of tanks fitting the necessary description.
One such case is the tank-tainer transport of certain acids used in the mining industry.
Said Drysdale: We could see this was a growing market as the SA mining industry began to export more and more mining technology into African mining developments.
In this situation, it is natural to assume that hard goods will soon begin to follow the export of expertise - and that acids would be one of those products for which demand would be created.
But the problem is that sulphuric and hydrochloric acid - two of the more popular acids in mining functions - can't legally be transported in standard chemical-grade tank-tainers.
Sulphuric acid clocks in at a specific gravity of 1.8 (distilled water providing the benchmark, with an SG of 1), he said. Standard volume tanks would be over the legal mass limit if they carried this acid product.
The answer here was to design and have built a selection of 14 000 litre tanks - now keeping the weight of full tanks within the legal bounds.
Hydrochloric acid offered different, but still restrictive, problems.
It's very aggressive to steel, said Drysdale, and needed a specially lined tank. This we succeeded in achieving by using blown glass for the lining - a material totally impervious to the effects of the acid.
Other areas of developing business - where tank conversions are creating new market niches - are also being found, Drysdale added. In transporting certain chemicals, international regulations demand that certain tank specifications be met, he said. These fall under the IMDG (International Maritime Dangerous Goods) regulations defined by this ISO (International Standards Organisation) body.
There are also IMO (International Maritime Organisation) specifications for the stainless steel tanks used to carry certain other dangerous chemicals.
All-in-all, Drysdale added, this represented a specialist market where demand existed, but suitable tanks were scarce - if available at all.
We are now converting tanks to meet these various regulations, he said, and developing a market in supplying these specialist areas of the chemical industry.
Copyright Now Media (Pty) Ltd
No article may be reproduced without the written permission of the editor
To respond to this article send your email to joyo@nowmedia.co.za
