US Army's Joint Base Balad in Iraq opens expanded box repair yard

JOINT Base Balad in Iraq has commenced operations of its newly relocated container repair yard (CRY), which is four times larger than the facility it replaces, thereby providing greater storage space and production capabilities.

The new box repair yard is intended to meet steadily growing demand for transportation worthy containers, which has risen from contracts to repair 120 containers per month in May 2009, according to Captain Jason Vivian, officer in charge of transportation with the 80th Ordnance Battalion, 15th Sustainment Brigade, 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary).

He was cited as saying in an online report posted at www.dvidshub.net that the container repair yard recently landed a contract to repair 3,000 containers per month which are to be used to transport cargo back to the US. The increase was set in increments spread out so the team could progress to the target number, he said.

"These containers are being repaired to meet the (International Convention for Safe Containers) certifications and are now able to go seaworthy by ship," said Capt Vivian. "Before, we weren't able to put these containers on ships because they wouldn't meet the standards that are out there for us to ship stuff back to the States."

Originally, occupying a site measuring three acres, the expanded box repair yard now sits on a 28-acre plot.

"The small yard (the workers were) in, wasn't going to have the capacity to hold the amount of containers we needed (them) to bring in, fix, repair and bring back out to the empty container collection point," said Capt Vivian. "We can easily put in over 3,000 containers at a given time."

It costs less than US$1,000 for the CRY to repair the containers, far less than the $4,000 cost of a new container.

In January the CRY repaired around 2,000 containers, although, the expanded yard has the ability to repair 100 containers per day.
 

Source: SchedNet