Afriguide Logistics Share the Complexities of Auction Cargo

24th November 2022

Afriguide Logistics, our members from South Africa, recently wrote a piece on the topic of handling auction cargo.

This type of cargo carries its own challenges, as the goods are usually sold on an “as is, where is” basis - meaning that the responsibility is on the buyer to fetch the cargo which lies in the auction lot. This is fine if the cargo was a light vehicle or any easily moveable item, but when confronted with 100+ tons of dead machinery, it becomes another matter entirely.

"An operation like this requires riggers and cranes on-site, as well as a team of fitters to either dismantle or resurrect the dead machines to get loaded onto road transport."

There is usually no assistance from the auction yard/job site. In fact, more often than not, the site owner will impose several impediments such as requirements for safety and security inductions, risk assessments, limited access windows, etc.

Once the cargo has been extracted, Afriguide move it to an off-dock storage facility where it can be prepared for exporting. From the storage yard, the cargo is then to be transferred to the port terminal in preparation for shipping.

This usually involves cleaning (for bio-controlled entry points such as USA, Canada, and Australia), parts consolidation, skidding, strapping, crating fall-off and nesting and securing smaller components into buckets, load bodies and blades to reduce freight volume.

"As most of the cargo is not container friendly, it will often require shipping as breakbulk, or on a Mafi trailer as RoRo and static accompanying cargo."

One of the peculiarities of the South African port terminal operators is that they do not actually handle OOG cargo in exchange for the THC that is charged, instead the forwarder is required to arrange for cranes, riggers, Mafi tractors or even direct loading (at an additional expense).