Vitamins on a Plate for Corus

01 Apr 2005

Juice carriers – transports of delight for CI Norway.

Combined efforts by CI Norway and CC&I Scunthorpe have resulted in orders for 3,000 tonnes of reversing mill plate for each of two highly specialised 40,000 tonne juice carriers now being built by Norway’s largest shipyard, Kleven Florø, for delivery in December 2006.

Kleven Florø, a leader in the development and building of juice carriers, delivered the first ship in the world designed specifically to carry fresh fruit juice with a speed requirement of over twenty knots on the routes from South America to Europe. A sensitive product, juice can be carried as a frozen concentrate or fresh liquid. The cargo tanks are made of highly polished stainless steel and topped up, after loading, with a nitrogen atmosphere to eliminate oxygen that could lead to the growth of bacteria. The refrigeration system ensures that the cargo can be maintained at about zero degrees Celsius for fresh juice and about minus ten degrees Celsius for frozen concentrated juice. An advanced emergency power supply system ensures that cargo handling and cooling arrangements continue to function even in the event of an engine room blackout.

Produced to Shipbuilding Grade A and E36 specification all of the plates for the new ships are being tailor-made in specific sizes and certified according to Lloyds and all rolling, shot blasting and painting is taking place at Scunthorpe. Average thickness of the plates is 14mm and average size is 2,600mm wide by 8,500mm long. The first call offs, totalling 800 tonnes, are due to reach Florø in May and deliveries will continue until early November 2005.

Shipbuilding is an important industrial sector in Norway with major world players such as the Aker Group, and Ulstein being based here.