Freetown is the door, and the mining districts are the reason most machines come through it.
Freetown handles effectively all of Sierra Leone's imported machinery. Behind it sit the iron ore, rutile and bauxite operations, the road programme and a steady amount of building in and around the capital.
Production sized excavators, five tonne and larger wheel loaders, graders for haul roads and tippers built for site work rather than highway running. If you are feeding a plant all day, buy one size up rather than one size down.
Roads take single drum rollers, graders, tippers and loaders. Building in Freetown takes twenty tonne excavators, backhoe loaders and mixers. Smaller contractors do well with one backhoe loader that digs, loads and moves itself.
The wet season decides a lot. Tracked machines hold where wheels do not, and undercarriage wear climbs in mud, so watch the chains and rollers and service them on time. Keeping a set of filters on site is cheap insurance.
Use an agent who moves plant rather than general cargo. We issue the commercial invoice, the packing list and the bill of lading before the vessel arrives so nothing waits on our side.
For West Africa the Moroccan yard is often the quicker route, and Casablanca is an easy flight if you want to see the machine before you pay for it.
What contractors and mining companies in Sierra Leone ask us.
With the machine and the port we come back with one landed figure, and we will tell you if Morocco beats China for you.
