Ship Hold Fumigation

What this covers

Treatment of cargo in a vessel hold, and treatment of empty holds before loading where the previous cargo has left a residual population behind. The cargo is usually a bulk agricultural commodity: grain, maize, pulses or feed materials carried loose rather than bagged.

The insects are the same stored product species that infest a shore store. The difference is scale, the depth of the mass the gas has to travel through, and the fact that the space belongs to a vessel that has somewhere else to be.

How the work is planned

Hold work is planned jointly with the master, the agent and the port before anybody starts. The hold is sealed at hatches and vents, the treatment is applied, and the exposure period runs to a schedule that has been agreed in advance against the vessel movement.

Nothing about this is decided on the quay. If the sealing arrangement, the exposure period and the ventilation plan are not agreed before the job begins, it should not begin.

Safety and access

Access control is the whole job. Holds under treatment are sealed and placarded, and crew movement around them is restricted for the full period by agreement with the master. Entry into a treated hold does not happen until it has been ventilated and the atmosphere has been checked.

This is the most tightly controlled work on this site, and the part of it that is never shortened for a schedule.

How long it takes

Longer than shore work of the same tonnage. A deep bulk mass takes time for the gas to move through, and ventilation of a large hold is not quick either. The schedule is set against the vessel and the port, and it is agreed before the job is accepted rather than discovered as it runs.

What you receive

A written record for each hold treated: the vessel and hold identification, the cargo and tonnage, the dates and times of the exposure period, and confirmation of ventilation before entry was permitted.

If a particular document is required by the receiving port or the charterer, that requirement must reach us in writing before the work is booked.

What is needed from the vessel

The cargo details and tonnage per hold, the hold arrangement and sealing points, the vessel schedule, and a named contact on board with the authority to control access. Confirmation that the crew can be kept clear of the treated holds for the full period is a condition of the work, not a preference.