Drone Technology to Cut Delivery Costs to Ships

15th March 2016

Maersk deliver cookies in a bag slung under a drone to a moored tanker. See full video below. Credit: Videograb: Maersk

In the shipping and tanker business, it can be hard to predict far in advance which port will be called to next and even when in port, it can be complicated and expensive to deliver items to vessels as they are not alongside the quay. Drone technology offers a solution to this and Maersk Group have been trialling it at sea.

Drones could cut time and costs for deliveries and inspections – but shipping lines say they must be reliable and absolutely safe. Maersk Tankers is testing delivery to vessels on drones that have been certified for explosive environments.

Costs for a barge are on average USD 1,000 and can be higher. That means, drone use could with the current payload bring potential savings of USD 3,000-9,000 per vessel per year, Maersk Tankers estimates.

Published in Ports & Shipping

Tagged under

About The Author

Afloat.ie Team

Email The Author

Afloat.ie is Ireland's dedicated marine journalism team.

Have you got a story for our reporters? Email us here.

We've got a favour to ask

More people are reading Afloat.ie than ever thanks to the power of the internet but we're in stormy seas because advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news sites, we haven’t put up a paywall because we want to keep our marine journalism open.

Afloat.ie is Ireland's only full–time marine journalism team and it takes time, money and hard work to produce our content.

So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

If everyone chipped in, we can enhance our coverage and our future would be more secure. You can help us through a small donation. Thank you.