Controls the loading in Jøssingfjord

- As the loading facility is not mobile, the boat must be moved along the way. The operation is quite complicated and requires a lot of planning, says operations manager in FFS, Leif Steinar Simonsen.

The ilmenite is extracted by the company Titania at an open pit at Tellnes in Sokndal in Rogaland. Here is the world's largest ilmenite deposit with reserves of 400 million tonnes. Titania accounts for ten percent of the world's ilmenite production.

UP TO TEN times a year, bulk carriers call at the harbor in Jøssingfjord. 36,000 tonnes of ilmenite are loaded on board each time and transported on to a customer in China.

A harbor master permanently hired from FFS manages the loading. With him is a crane driver from Lister Kranservice, which is owned by FFS.

- EVERY LOADING takes between four and six days. Our job as "Port Captain" is to plan the operation and ensure that the loading takes place according to plan. The crew opens the hatches, people on the quay control the loading facility and our man drives the crane on board, says Simonsen, who shares the job with FFS colleague Odd Svein Hansen.

- In the days when loading is going on, we will have to live over here. That's why we switch. We are happy to take one boat each, says Simonsen.

LIKE Hansen has extensive experience as a sea captain, which is a great advantage in his role as harbor master.

The boats used in ilmenite freight are bulk carriers with cranes on deck.

So far, different boats have arrived each time. The one that was in April 2021 was 180 meters long, 32 meters wide and had a load capacity of 38,709 deadweight tons, Simonsen says.