Imagine You Can NCS Times Autumn 2014

2
By Ethan Gren, Amy Kellerman,
Connor Mendum, Daniel
Appleton, Connor Perry, Severina
Berry, and Saffie Heselton
PD Ports, Teesport is the fifth largest
port in the United Kingdom.
Teesport is based in Teesside. The main
imports are crude oil, natural gas, coal,
iron ore and other commodities.
Our group of eight students from
the Imagine You Can NCS autumn
programme visited Teesport and had
the opportunity to speak to the local
Harbourmaster, Jerry Drewitt. On our
visit, we found out the history of the
harbour, its purpose and its future plans.
The Harbourmaster is responsible for
managing the harbour; this includes the
safety and security of the port, getting
ships in and out efficiently and port
maintenance. Jerry Drewitt has a total of
37 years of experience in marine industry
and has been the Harbourmaster for 17
years. We found out that the role of a
Harbourmaster is not what it seems;
everyday on the job is a new experience.
Jerry took us on a tour of the river on
the Harbourmaster’s launch and gave us
plenty of detail about the port’s purpose
and the industries based on the river.
The River Tees is home to many
shipping industries, which includes
popular companies such as Asda, Tesco
and SABIC. These types of companies fill
the port each day with varying numbers
of ships. The volume of traffic on the river
ranges from 1-25 a day. This totals to over
5000 ships per year.
The continuous development of
Teesport has created many jobs over
the years. Currently Teesport employs
over 10,000 people. These jobs include
roles such as Harbour officers; Tees dock
workers and various service industries.
Most people are employed in the
cargo trade. Some examples are steel,
chemicals and various fossil fuels. These
cargoes move in and out of the port on
a daily basis. The smaller ships take
20,000 tonnes whereas bigger ships
that measure 326m long and 55m deep
take shipments of up to 190,000 tonnes.
The purpose of the Port
From Jerry we found out that the
River Tees isn’t just a river, it has many
underlying purposes.
Many companies store cargo in the
port area such as in warehouses. As well
as this, the port provides services which
include: food supplies, rubbish disposal
and medical care. PD Ports provides
these services for both incoming and
outgoing ships and their crews.
When ships come into the port,
specialist pilots with local knowledge
of the river take command of the large
vessels and bring them safely into the
basins depending on the draught of the
vessel. The special knowledge that the
pilots possess make them a key asset to
PD Ports. For the largest vessels they are
supported by the tug boats which help
manoeuvre the vessels once they are in
the river. The river must be surveyed
and dredged constantly to maintain the
deep channels which make it accessible
to some of the largest vessels coming
into the UK.
Managing hazards at the Port
There are many factors that have to
be taken into account to ensure that the
port is always safe.
This means the types of cargoes must
be considered so there are not any
breaches of safety. Over the years Jerry
and his team has been working towards
maximising safety within the port. For
example, cargo ships now don’t bring
in fossil fuel gas in gaseous form; they
now bring it in liquid form. This is due
to it being too dangerous as it is highly
flammable.
With the movement of goods and
people from all around the world, this
can present a hazard to people’s health.
For example, a disease that’s been in the
news recently is Ebola, because of this
workers at the port have to take certain
safety precautions such as selective
Voice of the Community
PD Ports: The underwater story
berthing, crew member screening and
checking the origins of certain voyages
to ensure they have not had the
opportunity to come into contact with
anyone who is infected. If these safety
precautions aren’t followed then it could
lead to a widespread epidemic.
Conservation
Along with managing the different
ships and cargoes that come into
Teesport, part of the Harbourmaster’s
job includes managing the environment
around the port, and ensuring that it is
conserved.
Since Jerry has been in the
Harbourmaster role, the relationship
of the port with the environment has
changed significantly and his job
concerns this more. One way that this
is done around Teesport is that the
riverbanks around the port are made of
slag, which is the stone-like waste that
is left over when metal is separated from
ore. On this, moss grows, and seaweed
is allowed to build up along the banks,
which is beneficial to the environment
and shows that the water is clean
because it wouldn’t grow otherwise.
In addition to this, Jerry and his team
are looking at using the silt that is
collected from dredging to help the
wildlife, rather than it currently being
deposited in a specific location in the
sea, for it to be washed away by the
tide. They are looking at using any clay
that is collected to create small islands
which are only visible when the tide
Earthbeat Social Action Project
Over two weekends a large group
of NCS students from Imagine You
Can swarmed an old school building in
Saltburn, not in the usual ‘young people
hanging around way’ but to make a
difference.
A week before this a man stood before
40 young people and told them about a
‘little’ renovation task that was currently
been undertaken in Saltburn. This man
was Tony Galuidi from the theatre
company Earthbeat. He spoke of the
huge task of renovating a rundown old
school building in to a active hub in the
community. He spoke of the work he did
and the mammoth task that was in front
of him and his organisation. At the end
of his talk he uttered a few words: “Who
would like to help us?” After that a wave
of 40 hands shot up.
We fast forward a week and we
have those very young people
scrubbing floors painting ceilings,
walls, scraping paint of old beautiful
goes out. These can benefit the local
birds as they feed on what is left by
the water. The wildlife can thrive in
this environment because there is little
disruption by humans in the industrial
areas. For example, the area near the
nuclear power station is fenced off so
the birds have a safe area to breed and
feed. This also helps the seal colonies in
the water as they are rarely disturbed
as well.
Cargo
One of the biggest providers of
Teesport’s cargo is Conoco Phillips. This
company mainly provides Teesport
with oil and gas which is stored on the
riverside in containers and distributed
nationwide. Other companies which
handle storage on the Tees are: Simons
Storage who import and store liquids
and gases and Vopak which provide
Bio-ethanol.
Steel is a big import and export on
Teesside as one of the main industries is
making steel from iron ore. The iron ore
comes into Teesport and is offloaded at
the iron ore terminal. Then, the steel is
made in the port steel making facility
and SSI UK has made over five million
tonnes of steel slabs since opening
the facility in 2012. Mostly, the steel is
dispatched to Thailand, where SSI is
based, and to date the total tonnage is
in excess of 3.2 million tonnes. This is a
major Teesside business as the value
of these exports is expected to be over
£1.2 billion.
Also, there are two container terminals
operated by PD Ports at Teesport which
deal with a range of different imports.
The containers come from the Baltic
routes and the Far-East as well as the
short sea market. Big retailers such as
Asda and Tesco are examples of the
short sea market as their goods, many of
which originate from China, are brought
to Teesside from Southampton to save
lorry miles. Those companies have vast
warehouses based on Teesside to store
the goods ready for distribution.
With this detailed insight into the
industry on Teesside, we would like
to thank Jerry Drewitt and all at PD
Ports for the opportunity and Lauren
Bywater from High Tide for organising
the visit. Overall, we learned a lot about
something most of us didn’t realise
existed and we all gained a lot from
the work place experience. Our raised
awareness of the local area has given
us a greater understanding of what is
happening and which career choices
are available.
tiles and over all making a difference
to a small community. Some of these
young people are from as far away
as Stockton and Whitby but still they
travelled to the small town of Saltburn
to try help make a difference to those
in need.
The huge renovation is still chugging
along and will soon hopefully be
finished for all to enjoy, and we have the
pleasure to say we were there to help
make a difference.