Shipment of Large Steel Equipment from the United States to China

PROJECT:

MSL Express worked on a project for one of the world’s largest iron and steel conglomerates. The client urgently required the delivery of large, specialized equipment for their Shanghai Plant to speed up their steel production. Since this was the first time that this enterprise acquired an equipment of enormous size, a lot of effort was spent in handling it in a professional and timely manner.

LOGISTICS REQUIREMENTS, CHALLENGES & SOLUTIONS:

Due to the unique and special requirements of this project, MSL Express had to closely coordinate the entire shipping process with multiple parties: the supplier, the seller’s representative, the buyer in Europe, and the buyer’s representative in the United States.

Furthermore, MSL Express had to document the process on-site by taking pictures and video clips to record the loading details, especially the lashing apparatus that would be used to tie down the equipment inside the vessel. MSL Express then had to immediately courier all these details to China, to allow the engineers in Shanghai and the shipping line’s staff at the terminal to assess the situation, i.e., how to unload the special equipment upon arrival at port of discharge, for safety reasons, and how to bring it into their factory.

Due to the oversized and overweight dimensions of the equipment, the cargo had to be lifted from ship side. This meant that special arrangements had to be made with the shipping line, including securing the captain’s approval and other logistics-related processes. Furthermore, the piece of machinery had a special import license for duty-free exempt transactions, so it had to arrive in Shanghai on or before a specific date, or the import license would expire.

There was no room for error. Paperwork associated with the cargo also had to be done correctly; otherwise the shipment would not qualify for duty-free exemption. So MSL Express had to do a lot of reverse management and took preventive measures from both China and USA sides.

RESULT:

The project was a success. MSL Express’s project manager was on site at Oakland port terminal in California to monitor the loading, to take pictures, videotape the entire process, and to ensure that the entire process went on smoothly. The cargo was delivered safely and on time.