Marine Cargo Types

There is a wide range of marine cargoes at seaport terminals operated. The primary types are these:

* Containers are the largest and fastest growing cargo category at most ports worldwide. Containerized cargo includes everything from auto parts and machinery components to shoes, toys, and frozen meat and seafood.

* Automobiles are handled at many ports.

* Project cargo and heavy lift cargo may include items such as manufacturing equipment, factory components, power equipment such as generators and wind turbines, military equipment or almost any other oversized or overweight cargo too big or too heavy to fit into a container.

* Break bulk cargo is typically material stacked on wooden pallets and lifted into and out of the hold of a vessel by cranes on the dock or aboard the ship itself. The volume of break bulk cargo has declined dramatically worldwide as containerization has grown.

* Bulk Cargoes, such as salt, oil, tallow, and Scrap metal, are usually defined as commodities that are neither on pallets nor in containers, and which are not handled as individual pieces, the way heavy-lift and project cargoes are. Alumina, grain, gypsum, logs and wood chips, for instance, are bulk cargoes.