Firm exports of pines to China

1st quality pine for construction and furniture; next boarding March 5. Select between the forests of Rivera and Tacuarembó 80 thousand pine trees of a certain diameter and length, transport them to the port of Montevideo to fill a ship with 32 thousand tons of trees destined for China, it seems an easy task even if it is not. On the contrary, it is a complex operation, committed, with unforeseen events, and it is better that it does not start raining when the ship’s holds are open and the covers on the floor, because even with that setback there will be no need to lower the arms or waste time in laments but to keep moving forward, to be efficient and competitive, because the prize is not before, but afterwards. –

INTERVIEW.

In our interview today we are going to basically refer to the demanding logistics required by each shipment of pine trees, which incidentally makes many people perspire and asks for a total commitment of effort and professionalism that for four or five days does not give any respite. After the shipment of those 32 thousand tons of pine trees on the ship “Maipu River” for China carried out on February 5, an interview with its exporters -Francisco Rodríguez Morena and María Gabriela Quincke (Muradir) – is required to know the details of the stages involved in this export vein, nothing that is not surmountable, but the effort, a little beyond, is always present. Thus, after an extended and detailed account of our interviewees, we understand that the process of exporting pines is based, obviously, on good pines that give with the measures, but basically it is a constant race of logistic processes since the tree is cut until it is stowed in the ship’s hold. And no less important is the other leg of this business that is the work developed by the port operator company, which in this case was DSC Pantzin, well known in our port, which takes the logs from the truck to the side of the ship. So hours-driver-truck from the mountain to the collection in Montevideo and from here again hours-truck to the port. Our interviewees detail this other link in the process of loading the ship carried out by the port operator and that also requires logistics and not a few efforts, as well as professionalism, skill and experience. “As you can imagine” -relate-, “in this final stage we are also on board and on land supporting the port operator to find together the best solutions and solve the problems of the moment. But placing the 80 thousand pines in the holds of the ship is a task that must be done with complete professionalism to give perfect stability to the ship, safety to the stevedores, without wasting spaces, and try to put as much wood as possible in the boat. This particular stage takes about 4 or 5 days while the ship is in port; We work in three shifts of eight hours, that is, 24 hours. To be precise, 60 workers worked in the five warehouses of the ship divided into three shifts (stevedores in the hold, pointers, crane operators, trincadores, foremen, preventionists, machinists, etc.) .-

LOGISTICS.

Throughout the extended conversation, our lumber dealers overwhelmed us with an unsuspected story of a very long chain of multiple actions, from cutting the tree in the forest until it is put on board the ship. Everything confirms that exporting logs is a complex operation, that there is not only one logistics but several, and that there are many man-truck-driver-transport hours. “We,” they say, “buy the wood in the forest but put it in our stockpile in Montevideo, so the first thing is to make contact with the owner of the forest or the plantation, and with the experience we have, we make a penetration visual of some days in the forest to have a pattern of if what we are seeing has the desired length and diameter: not less than 20 centimeters in diameter at the tips, as straight as possible and health condition. Once the wood is in our warehouse we proceed to its fumigation 10 days before boarding, and we cover the stowage with plastic sheets. When the boat arrives, it is our responsibility to take that wood and transport it to the port. It is from the truck on the side of the ship that the port operator DSC Pantzin assumes the cargo of the ship “.

SUPPLIERS

“So far we have two wood suppliers that have 15 mountains in Tacuarembó and Rivera and from now add mountains from Paysandú, but we are in the process of adding more wood suppliers. We are loading one boat per month, but our purpose is to go to a ship every 20 days, even when the Chinese ask for one boat per week, which we would like but materially for the moment it seems difficult “. – “The fact is that loading a ship per week exceeds any possibility because of the logistics that are very demanding, complicated, and because the flow of transport would exceed the capacity of roads, trucks and drivers. And this is the big issue. Certainly the first of the handicaps is the road transport and the second would be the port congestion that would occur “. For this to be understood our interviewees clarify: “Carrying a boat per week would involve putting on the road 1200 trucks, or 5000 trucks per month (four boats) that would be arriving at our warehouse in Montevideo, and another 5000 trucks from here to the port; We can not imagine 5000 trucks in the port. So loading a boat every 20 days, which is our reasonable objective, implies the commitment of 50 thousand man-hours per month of transport and that is what we are trying to do, “our interviewees add. Within the logistics developed in the cargo of the ship “Maipu River”, both Francisco Rodríguez and María Gabriela Quincke are precise in highlighting with praiseworthy adjectives the work done by DSO Pantzir, the port operator company that at all times marked times of efficiency and suitability , and that with a personal enthusiast he established in the operative a profile of responsible team, which contributed to turn the serious challenge into a success that even shaped the officiality of the boat.

HISTORY 1988.

The topic of trunks or wood touches us very closely because we were the first to deal with that inaugural and unusual export that took place on July 25, 1988 on the ship “Searider”, with 18 thousand tons of eucalyptus destined to Finland, operation carried out by Tile. On the occasion of that first boarding a meeting was held on board and there we were with the then Minister of Transport of the time, Jorge Sanguinetti. So far, in these 29 years, we have written more than 700 articles-interviews about the entire timber sector without exception. Even some years ago we promoted a meeting on behalf of the newspaper El País among loggers in the Navigation Center. We had faith in wood. By Emilio Cazalá.- (El País)