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Home Green Marine BHP to Improve Safety by Using Drones in Ocean Freight Ops

BHP to Improve Safety by Using Drones in Ocean Freight Ops

October 11, 2018

After becoming an early adopter of drones across its mine sites, international resources company BHP has started introducing drones into its ocean freight operations. 

Illustration. Image Courtesy: Pixabay under CC0 Creative Commons license

As explained by the company, this provides “enormous safety benefits and efficiency gains”.

Although the project is still in the trial phase, BHP’s Vice President of Marketing Freight, Rashpal Bhatti, sees the potential for drones to be a key part of a tablet-based technological package, incorporating artificial intelligence that provides captains a digital view of their ship.

“All of our chartered ships receive a tablet when they berth. And on the tablet they can read the tension of the mooring line which has major safety benefits,’’ Bhatti said.

“The question now is can the same tablet become a holistic technological package by also delivering ship hold inspection data, draft readings and other critical information captured by drones. It’s all a bit futuristic but that is the direction we are going,’’ he added.

Like the drones being used across other parts of BHP’s operations, marine drones can be programmed to carry a range of specific tasks.

In the ocean freight business, there are clear and immediate advantages from using drones in the inspection of holds and in the taking of draft readings. Then there is their nimbleness in the seemingly simple but important task of advising the ship’s bridge on the water position of the rudder, BHP said.

Hold inspection reports would continue to be independent assessments but the use of drones promises to cut inspection times per hold from an hour to 15 minutes.

“The hold inspection process involves ships which have five to nine holds which a person checks by climbing down ladders. The inspector has to be physically fit, use fall protection, and carry a parrot (oxygen meter) to make sure there is enough air in the hold. And it takes a lot of time,’’ Bhatti explained.

“With drones, we can fly them into a hold and capture 4K images, but also infra-red, and other types of cameras that can show cracks or other specific parameters that cannot be seen with the naked eye. There are basically three or four types of ships with hold sizes about the same. So once you program a drone to go into a certain ship, it can become an autonomous process. So you have a better way to assess the condition of the hold, and you are removing a person from a potentially hazardous situation,’’ Bhatti further said.

BHP is also testing the use of drones to improve the safety, time and cost of ship draft readings. This is usually done from a boat when the ship is berthed and ready for a cargo.

One of the logistical challenges to overcome is to get the drones on ships when they are offshore at anchorage, as distinct from being berthed, according to the company.

“We are working with ship owners on this and other ways to use technology to improve safety and productivity,’’ Bhatti continued.

BHP ships more than 300 million tons of iron ore, coal and copper around the world annually. More than 1,500 voyages are made, making BHP one of the largest charterers of dry bulk carriers in the world.