MoorMaster™ Secures New Bulk Handling Application

Cavotec’s automated mooring technology, MoorMaster™, has achieved further success with news that Australian mining company, Karara Mining, has ordered 12 MoorMaster™ units for installation at the iron ore handling facility at the Port of Geraldton in Western Australia.

Karara Mining has ordered the MM200D units for use at their dedicated bulk handling facility at the Port of Geraldton to minimise the serious safety risk of mooring lines parting. All MoorMaster™ MM200D units are specially designed and built to withstand falling rocks and fine iron ore dust.

Situated some 400km north of Perth, Geraldton is one of Australia’s busiest regional ports. The Port has historically been one of Australia’s larger grain export ports and today, more than half the port’s exports are generated from minerals and iron ore.

MoorMaster™ is a vacuum-based automated mooring technology that eliminates the need for conventional mooring lines. Remote controlled vacuum pads recessed in, or mounted on, the quayside, moor and release vessels in seconds. The system offers improved safety, improved operational efficiency and the potential for infrastructure savings.

MoorMaster™ is becoming a popular choice at bulk handling applications in Australia. For example, 14 MoorMaster™ MM200B units have recently been commissioned at thePort Hedland Port Authority, and Cavotec has recently delivered eight MM200D units to Hamersley Iron Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of Anglo-Australian mining group Rio Tinto, for the Dampier Fuel Supply Wharf in the Port of Dampier.

MoorMaster™ is an increasingly accepted and widely adopted technology that has performed more than 40,000 mooring operations, with a 100% safety record, at ferry, bulk handling, Ro-Ro, container and lock applications around the world.

For more information about MoorMaster™, you can download a recent technical article about the technology published by Port Technology International here. And a video of a version of the system, installed in locks on the St. Lawrence Seaway in Canada is available on our YouTube site here.