Tanks (for Commercial Supremacy) of Palm Oil at Kinshata, Congo.
Finally, one word about the packing and transport. Care should be
taken that kernels do not cause a fire on board ship. In Nigeria six
sacks of palm kernels were submitted by the police department for
investigation as to the cause of a fire which occurred in the hold of a
ship loading in the Lagoon. The fire seems to have broken out in several
separate places in the cargo, which consisted of bags of kernels
solidly packed.
The kernels
had been stored some time in the bags, and it was the dry season. There
had been a blazing sun and little breeze for several days previously
during the period of loading, and so not only was the fibre of the
sacking made very dry, but also it would have become more oily from the
heated kernels exuding oil and there was very little chance of the heat
being reduced in a closed full hold. Such oily fibre would absorb oxygen
from the air very readily, and in these circumstances the temperature
would rise so high as to cause oily vapours to inflame and so start the
fires. The sacks showed that the fires started at the outside fibre, and
not inside among the kernels, and after the fire the fibre of the sacks
held from 20 to 25 per cent, of oil.
