AQIS pre-clearance of EX1200 and shipping from Indonesia to Australia

Brief

To facilitate cost-effective movement of a 120-tonne Hitachi EX1200 hydraulic excavator from East Kalimantan job site to client’s yard, Brisbane.

Origin

East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Destination

Brisbane, Australia

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Job Specifics

The international leg of this journey – from Jakarta to Brisbane – was always going to be relatively straightforward. We had contract freight rates in place with a premium carrier and Indonesia has long been familiar territory for Freightplus, supported by an excellent, exclusive agency partner in the region. The challenge we faced was to minimise costs prior to shipment and after arrival in Australia.

We coordinated cost-effective movement of the completely built-up excavator, straight off the Kalimantan job site to Jakarta port, by consolidating machines for three different customers onto one LCT (landing craft), significantly reducing the mobilisation cost for each of the buyers.

Once at Jakarta, the excavator was self-propelled to our agent’s adjacent port facility and partly dismantled, reducing the shipping volume by some 35%.

Because the cargo was made up of large, static pieces, the best opportunity to reduce costs at destination was to minimise the number of crane lifts and transport sectors required .  We recommended to our client that we arrange for AQIS (Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service) to conduct an off-shore inspection at Jakarta. This would enable us to discharge from the vessel, directly onto low-loaders, for delivery to site.  The alternative was to follow standard AQIS clearance procedures after arrival, meaning each piece would have need to be craned onto trucks, taken to a Quarantine approved premises, unloaded, washed, lifted, inspected and then reloaded onto heavy transport vehicles for delivery to site.

Because AQIS does not generally send officers to countries for which the government has issued travel safety warnings, our initial application for an offshore inspection was rejected.  We reapplied with an offer to coordinate around-the-clock police or military protection for the attending AQIS officer.  AQIS kindly approved our revised application on this basis.

Freightplus sent one of our Asia-based quarantine assessors to oversee the quarantine cleaning process at our agent’s Jakarta yard and, once cleaning had been completed to a satisfactory standard, the AQIS officer was dispatched from Australia.  His military escort and our representative met the AQIS officer at the aircraft gate and within three days, he had signed off and was heading back to Australia.

The disassembled excavator arrived in Australia, pre-cleared through AQIS by offshore inspection and pre-cleared through Australian Customs by Freightplus.  Cargo was met under ship’s hook and transported directly to our client.

Outcome

Delivered in full, on-time and at significantly reduced cost to our customer.