Although our first shipment was not prefect but we should appreciate our achievements because Sino Bell team had earn a lot of experience and studies from this shipment.

=p

Thank you Sino Bell Team.

Lets makes everything smoother in our next shipment.

- The End -

The Sino Bell team would like to go to the mother vessel to see the steam coals loading from the barge to the mother vessel.

speedboat

The Sino Bell Team went to the mother vessel by riding on a speedboat. We rid on the speedboat in another place called Kota Baru because the supplier said that it is safer for us to go to the mother vessel from Kota Baru due to our foreigner passports.

From Batulicin to Kota Baru needs 1 hour journey by a Ferry and from Kota Baru where we rid the speedboat to the mother vessel is around 30 minutes journey.

MV 1

MV 2

The Sino Bell Team had reached the Mother Vessel and will go into the Mother Vessel.

The Name of our Mother Vessel is Cheng Lu 19 and the anchorage point is in Tanjung Pemancingan.

loading onto the MV

grabing

When Sino Bell team arrived onto the Mother Vessel, they had started loading the steam coals onto the Mother Vessel. There were Bulldozers that need to push and tidy up the steam coals so that the grabs can grab the steam coals easily.

And of course the bulldozer did not go to the mother vessel on the same barge as the steam coals. The bulldozers were on the other barge.

Otherwise, the Geoservices will not be able to survey the exact amount of steam coals that were on the barge.

The Sino Bell team had some chit chat with the Ship Captain and all the other people on the Mother Vessel.

After staying on the Mother Vessel for around 2 and a half hours, Sino Bell team need to hurry back to Batulicin before its getting too dark.

LOADING TO THE BARGE!!!!

The barge can already been seen. Lets first see our dearest barge…

there.. there.. there..

can u see??

Yuhuuuu

long...

The name of our barge is called Sinar Banjar. It is 320 ft long that can carry min 5000MT and max 8000MT of steam coals.

preparation

The in charge people and the bulldozer were already prepared to welcome the barge to berth. The bulldozer was there to clean up the road that will be used by the trucks from the stockpile to inside the barge.

Sinar Banjar

arriving 1

arriving 2

The barge is starting to berth. When they berth, they need to really fit in perfectly with the help of a tugboat. The picture of a tugboat couldn’t be captured because it is smaller than the barge and so the view of the tugboat is blocked by the barge.

This barge got its own engine as well which can move faster than any other barge that can only rely on the strength of a tugboat.

berth 1

berth 2

berth 3

BERTH!!

Now the barge had berth perfectly where the trucks may start moving the steam coals to the barge.

From all the above pictures, seems like that the barge came smoothly right?? Actually it was not smooth. The Sino Bell team waited for a whole 2 days. Day and night at the jetty. It took a whole 2 days for it to berth because of the low tide and high tide thing. When it was on a low tide, the previous barge couldn’t move away and our barge couldn’t come over.

Anyway, once the barge were ready, steam coals can be moved from the stockpile to the barge.

move

move..

move...

As usual…

Because loading onto the barge by using trucks, then a bulldozer will then be needed again to grab the steam coals in the stockpile and dump it into the truck so that the trucks can move the steam coals to the barge.

loading

onto the

barge

From the picture… See the machine there?? It is known as a conveyor belt. Actually using a conveyor belt to load steam coals onto the barge is way faster. Crushing using the conveyor belt can drop/load onto the barge immediately after the steam coals are crushed.

However, because our steam coals had already been crushed previously due to because we want to see the crushing before Sino Bell pay the 50% of the steam coals. It is to make sure that the steam coals really belongs to us that we can do anything with our steam coal.

We cannot wait the crushing when the barge had berth because the supplier (CV. Permata AL-Zahra) was not good in managing the barge.

There was always an issue that other people’s barge took our barge parking spot or because of the low tide thing. So we need to see the crushing before the barge berth. The other reason why the operation cannot use the conveyor belt was because the supplier always say that he got no money.

*Note: The supplier should be responsible in paying for the overall operation as agreed.

Full

Can u see the tugboat??

Hahahaha… The Barge is now fill up with our steam coals already. And can anyone see the tugboat? The red roof that you may or may not realize is the tugboat. I can finally capture a bit of it.

But don’t worry. The next picture, you may see more bits of the tugboat. =D

waiting

go

Since the barge is now filled up with enough steam coals so the Sino Bell team and the others were waiting the best timing for the barge to start going to the mother vessel.

The best timing as is ensuring that the tides was high enough for the barge to start moving to the barge.

There were already Geoservices people on standby to survey how many metric tons steam coals were loaded on the barge. It can only be survey when the barge is already on the middle of the sea.

After waiting for a day, the result shown that there were 5,110 MT steam coals loaded on the barge. So the barge can move on to the mother vessel.

01

02

Hmmmm… Why is there another crushing point??

Sadly, it was because there were always a big issue happening in Kodeco that may stop our operation from continue proceeding. The issue is always the private matters between the supplier (CV. Permata Al-Zahra) and the Kodeco owner.

Crusher

Amazing right

So… First, the steam coals that were already located in the jetty needs to be moved close to the crusher first. Near the crusher, there is a hole that is mainly known as a Hopper. The hopper is the exact spot where the steam coals need to be dropped.

To be Neat

Wandering what the bulldozer is doing there??

The bulldozer needs to spoon up coals that were dropped messily on the ground near the hopper so that it is neat. And also while crushing, the bulldozer needs to keep pushing the coals to drop down to the hopper to be crushed.

Lets see the crushing now…

Sliding up

First…. The steam coal will slide up to the main crushing point.

Crushing point

Second. Crushing… Crushing… Crushing…

next

Third will be crushed, drop, slide up and drop again.

Done

Finally………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The crushing is done… Yeah!!!

Sino Bell’s Team went to the Jetty this time to see the whole situation. Lets start with the pictures first.

Enjoy…

No.1

No. 2

No. 3

No. 4

No. 5

As you can see… The process is a routine. Trucks will start coming in to the jetty once they had reached the jetty. Each truck takes 2 hours journey to reach the jetty and the empty trucks journey back to the mine site will take an hour.

Each truck that has arrived the jetty will pour the coals on their own specific stockpile that is rented by the Seller. Sino Bell team will also of course check if the seller had sign a legal contract stating that they have rent the spot and yes the contract do exist.

The code

On the picture, there was already bout 600MT on the stockpile so it was enough to tag our code on our own stockpile. Each company will tag their own code on their stockpile and our code is PAZ which stands for PERMATA AL-ZAHRA, the company name of our seller since the spot was rented by his company.

Let us now pray for the sun to shine every day and night at least on our next shipment.

sigh…

Each and every day, only a couple of trucks manage to haul the steam coals from the mine site to the jetty.

The standby trucks

stand by trucks

On the other days… We went to the mine site again to monitor the situations and we saw that there were already so many trucks were on stand by.

But unfortunately, the weather was not good.

rain rain go away

It was a rainy season in Indonesia including Batulicin, so it was raining every afternoon. When it rains, trucks were forced to stop hauling to the jetty due to the muddy infrastructure because it may cause the tires to get stuck on the muddy infrastructure and may cause the trucks to turn upside down.

Though later the rain stopped, trucks can only wait till the muds are all dried up to continue their hauling.

It was really sad and disappointing but there was nothing we can do so we moved to the jetty….

But before the deliveries to the jetty starts, the 2nd coal piles need to be moved to the where the 1st coal piles were located first.

The Bulldozer

This 2000MT steam coal will be delivered to the 1st coal piles by trucks. So, the bulldozer needs to get ready first which as we can see is already on top of our 2000MT steam coals.

Loading into the Truck

Yuhuuuuuuuu!!! The truck is already on its spot to deliver the 2000MT to the 1st coal piles. Now, the bulldozer will grab some coals and dump it into the truck. The Bulldozer will dump in a couple of grabs to fill the truck first before it goes to the 1st coal piles and after a couple of grabs had been dump into the truck…

Traveling

…. the truck will start moving to the 1st coal piles. It took around 3 ~ 4 hours to complete this whole process because only one truck was used. Why??? It is because of the infrastructure. As u can see from the above right hand side of the picture, the road was only able to fit one truck. The space of the 2nd coal piles and the road was very limited so they only used one truck.

The Infrastructure

The Sino Bell team went on the road to see how well is the infrastructure and how long is the distance from the 2nd coal piles to the 1st coal piles. Beside the road can only fit one truck, the infrastructure like shown on the picture was good because it is made of sands and stones.

Pouring

Everytime the truck had reached the first coal piles, steam coals will be pour onto the 1st coal piles. To save time and meet its delivery date, trucks that will be used to deliver steam coals to the jetty need to be prepared and standby.

Standby...

Ready...

Start...

Go!!

The process will be the same as to moving the the 2000MT steam coals to the 1st coal piles. There is another bulldozer on the 1st coal piles that will grab coals and dump it into the truck and the truck will deliver the steam coals to the jetty.

same time

At the same time, while the 2000MT needs to be delivered to the 1st coal piles, truckings to the jetty had already started.

Maybe there might be 2 questions wandered by the readers.

1. Is there only 1 trucks being used again for delivering the steam coals to the jetty?

2. Why don’t the trucks deliver the 2000MT steam coals directly to the jetty?

Let me answer the first question first. No, there is not only 1 trucks being used to deliver the steam coals from the mine site to the jetty or else it will take years to complete the delivery.

How many trucks are there?

There should are a lot of trucks that are used to deliver the steam coals from the mine site to the jetty. There should be around 30 trucks being used and when i took this picture, 20 trucks were already on their way to the jetty.

Now, as for the second question. The 2000MT of steam coals cannot be delivered straight away to the jetty because there is no checking point that looks like a post on the 2nd coal piles as there was also a very limited space.

checking

The post looks something like the one in the picture. These people stay in the post when there will be trucks hauling to the jetty. They were not only checking, they need to issue a delivery order of coals for each truck to proves that they are legal.

Delivery Order of Coals

This is how the Delivery Order of Coals look like. The Checker needs to fill up everything on this delivery note beside the Weight and the Receiver. After it is filled up, the driver needs to bring it with them n hand it to the guards in the jetty so that they can fill in the weight of every trucks and the total amount of coals they had delivered to the jetty and the receiver will need to sign the paper after they had receive it.

Knowing the weight is also easy for everyone to know the exact metric tons of steam coal that had been delivered to the jetty.

One of the Best sources that Sino Bell had found is in a small village of Indonesia called “Batulicin”. Sino Bell arrived Batulicin on the 6th of October 2008. Our first destination in Batulicin is going to the mine site called “Karang Bintang” that belongs to a company named PT. PUTRA BATULICIN MEMBANGUN. The Steam Coal that we saw in Karang Bintang (minesite) seems positive.

Steam Coal = 4000MT w/t 6800 kcal

The above picture was taken while Sino Bell’s Team was in the mine site. Due to the appearance of this steam coal which seems good, Sino Bell’s Team then took a bag of sample that needs to be tested in the Geoservices (Independent Lab).

Sample Taking

Sino Bell’s Team took the bag of sample by climbing up onto the coal so that the sample is taken randomly to get a more appropriate result.

…………….Sino Bell’s Team Exploration of the mine site did not just stop there……………..

Since there was only 4000MT of steam coal which is not enough to fill in one Barge, the supplier took the Sino Bell’s Team to see another pile of Steam Coal.

2nd Steam Coal = 2000MT w/t 6800kcal

This 2nd pile of Steam Coal shown to us only achieves the quantity of 2000MT. The supplier told the Sino Bell’s Team that actually the first pile and the second pile was meant to be combined. It’s just that the workers havent finish transporting this second pile coal to where the first pile was located.

*Note: The second pile of Steam Coal is also in Karang Bintang (mine site)

To be more specific, the next picture will be able to explain the supplier’s reason.

The green pond

This green ponds consist of beautiful steam coals inside it. Steam Coals were dig from inside this green pond. The dig ones were first kept at the side of the ponds. After they had finish their digging process, the dig ones will needs to be traveled to another spot of the same mine site. This is the reason why the 2nd coal pile was seems separated from the first coal pile.

Principle: …”Believe Nothing of what we were told and discount 50% of what we were shown”…

Therefore, Sino Bell’s Team also took a sample of the 2nd pile that were shown to us regardless what what we were told by the supplier that the 1st pile and the 2nd pile came from the same mine. The sample that we took from the 2nd pile was kept on the same bag as the 1st bag to know what is the test result after they were combined because the supplier will combined both of the coal piles. It came out that the Test Result was:

Total Moisture = 5.97%

Moisture = 4.18%

Ash = 10.87%

Volatile Matter = 40.86%

Fixed Carbon = 44.09%

Total Sulphur = 0.90%

Calorific Value = 6800 Cal/g

The End of our first journey to the Mine Site.

To Be Continued...