The relocation of the existing grain handling and storage facilities to the ‘Aqaba New Port’, located in the Port of Aqaba in the south of Jordan, forms part of a wider strategic development plan to transform the current main port area into a mixed-use waterfront area, including residential homes, recreational and business facilities, along with several hotels, a yacht marina and a cruise terminal.
Jan Dekkers, Eric Pereira and Klaas Brouwer of Royal Haskoning report on this exciting project.
The project consists of the construction of a new Grain Terminal in the south ports area and is undertaken by the Aqaba Development Corporation (ADC). The new facilities are expected to be completed and put into operation by the end of 2013 and are designed for an annual throughput of 2.5mt (million tonnes). The design allows for easy future expansions of both the storage capacity and the vessel unloading capacity.
Royal Haskoning was engaged by ADC as consultant for the preparation of the concept design and tender documents. The assignment further includes technical assistance during the tender and contract award procedure. Potentially, Royal Haskoning’s role could be extended to include the position of Employer’s Representative during the implementation of the Project.
 
AQABA DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION (ADC)
The Aqaba Development Corporation (ADC) is semi-public company, 50% owned by ASEZA (Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority) and 50% by a number of ministries, represented by the Ministry of Transport. ADC was established in 2003 to mplement developments within the ASEZ.
 
ROYAL HASKONING
Royal Haskoning is an independent, multi-disciplinary consultancy with its head office in The Netherlands. The company, founded in 1881, was the first private consulting engineering practice in The Netherlands. Royal Haskoning has been active overseas for over 100 years, successfully carrying out a wide variety of projects throughout the world.
Being active in all fields of technical consultancy and engineering, Royal Haskoning is particularly experienced in the development of maritime port and transport infrastructure, integrating sophisticated planning, design and implementation expertise including contractual, legal, risk and financial skills, not only in the design and preparation phase, but also during the implementation of projects as Employer’s Representative and/or Engineer.
The firm’s expertise covers all fields of infrastructure development, as well as off-shore, on-shore and inland. The multi-disciplinary nature of the organization enables a complete and comprehensive service to be offered to the client, covering all stages of a project from conception to completion.
 
Project approach
For this particular project, the approach up to tendering included the preparation of the design brief, master plan, tender documents and the evaluation of the tenders:
  • Design brief The purpose of the design brief is to identify all design choices, to list the alternatives and to make recommendations. The design brief serves as a discussion document and stage pass, to fix all terms of reference of the project with maximum buy-in of all parties involved.
  • Master plan The master plan contains the final basis of design and definition drawings based on the decisions taken during discussion on the design brief. The master plan serves as the basis for the tender documents. The master plan was presented and discussed with all parties involved to ensure full support.
  • Tender documents The tender documents are prepared based on an EPC/ turnkey contract (FIDIC Silver Book), yet prescribing all essentials as identified in the design brief and concluded in the master plan. t Tendering phase The tender documents have been submitted to pre-qualified tenderers. During the tendering phase, the various queries have been answered in the form of addenda.
  • Evaluation of the tenders After receipt, the tenders were evaluated by the staff of ADC and Royal Haskoning based on pre-determined technical and financial evaluation criteria.
Scope of project
The new Grain Terminal will comprise a new grain berth equipped with unloaders which transfer the grains onto two overhead belt conveyors running to the head house in front of the reinforced concrete silos at the land terminal, also comprising a covered truck loading and bagging station, truck weigh bridges, office, canteen, workshop, fire fighting facilities, etc.
The following main design drivers were identified:
  • reduction of initial investment costs where possible;
  • phased development with respect to storage capacity and unloading and loading facilities; and y minimum dust emission and spillage according to the ALARA principle.
 
Ship unloaders
For unloading vessels up to Panamax size, two 800tph (tonnes per hour) unloading lines will be installed. The initial design includes two new 800tph mechanical ship unloaders. However, at its current grain terminal, ADC operates a 500tph mechanical and a 300tph pneumatic unloader. In a drive to reduce the initial investment costs, it was decided to investigate the feasibility of re-installing these unloaders on the new grain berth, after complete refurbishment and adaptation of the outtake conveying system, in combination with one new 800tph unloader. In order to avoid extensive adaptations to the portal structures, the rail gauge at the new grain berth is kept the same as on the existing grain terminal.
 
Grain silo
A 100,000-tonne reinforced concrete grain silo with head house will be installed. In the head house, after weighing by batch type weighers, the grains are elevated by bucket elevators to the silo deck, where a system of enclosed chain conveyors distributes the grains to the silo bins. The grain silo consists of four rows with each seven individually founded concrete silo bins with a raft foundation. However, contractors are allowed to offer alternatives which are technically or economically more attractive. Outtake from the silo to the truck loading station is by a system of belt conveyors, bucket elevators and chain conveyors.
 
Truck loading and bagging
All grains will be loaded into trucks. Inside the land terminal area, the parking area is limited to 60 trucks, since the entrance to the port area is regulated from the large truck parking area inside the ASEZ boundary. In principle, the trucks will be loaded at the fully enclosed truck loading and bagging station which consists of two combined bagging/bulk truck loading lines and four bulk truck loading lines. To enable loading of trucks in case of emergency, the two outer rows of the grain silo are equipped with direct truck loading spouts.
 
Reduction of dust emission and spillage
Reducing dust emission and spillage in combination with robustness and ease of operations has been one of the focal points of the design and the functional requirements. This is reflected in the selection of the fully enclosed continuous ship unloaders which will be equipped with enclosed outtake chain conveyors and dust-controlled truck loading bellows for direct loading in case of emergency. It is also reflected in the selection of enclosed or fully covered conveyors and the enclosed truck loading station. Dust control is by means of insertable dust filters at each transfer point and on the enclosed conveyors. Royal Haskoning prefers this individual filter system over a system with centralized dust filters with hopper and airlock for this prevents extensive suction and dust return piping and airlocks that tend to get clogged, since collected dust is returned directly in the product stream. Due care is taken in the wording of the functional requirements to guarantee that the filter cloth area of all filters will be sufficiently large to ensure that the velocity through the filter cloth remains below the required limits to avoid clogging of the filters and to reduce dust emission.
 
JOINT EFFORT
The preparation of the design brief, master plan, tender documents and the evaluation of the tenders for the Aqaba new Grain Terminal was a joint effort between ADC and Royal Haskoning and will result in a modern grain terminal, tailored to the experiences of ADC with major improvements regarding dust emission and spillage control.