If you need to ship heavy machinery from USA to countries overseas – most of the times the international machinery shipper will offer 2 options: flat rack container or roll-on roll-off heavy equipment shipping. Both of them are good options except for one little thing – the price.

With flat rack container shipping your heavy machinery will need to be loaded by an export packing warehouse onto the flat rack container. Loading charges are not cheap plus ocean carriers have very steep surcharges if the cargo is “out-of-gauge” – meaning over 8′ wide. Most of the excavators, back hoes, front loaders, cranes are well over 8′ wide. Also, getting a flat rack to some destinations is almost impossible.

With roll-on roll-off international heavy machinery shipping your cargo will be loaded onto the specialized vessel that doesn’t need any flat racks. The problem is the shipping cost is based on the size of your machine. The bigger the machine – the more you have to pay for overseas freight. Prices for shipping oversize machinery from USA to Europe are acceptable but nowadays majority of the construction machinery is being shipped to countries in Africa, Middle East and Latin America and ro/ro shipping rates to those destinations are quite high.

So is there an affordable shipping solution for transporting heavy machinery internationally? YES, there is. But it requires some creative loading. Basically, the cheapest way to ship machinery overseas is via container service. The problem is most of the construction, road building and agricultural machines are too big to fit inside the ocean containers. Cargo must be partially disassembled to make it fit inside the containers. It’s not an easy job but it can be done by some professional export packing warehouses.

Here’s an example of CAT loader that our company recently shipped to Africa:

Sure it takes a lot of labor to complete this job but oftentimes we’re able to save 2-3 thousand dollars in total shipping cost for our customers compared to roll-on roll-off costs. The only drawback is that the machine will have to be put together after it arrives to the final destination. A lot of our customers don’t have a problem with it as long as they have substantial savings on the international shipping cost on their heavy equipment.

So folks, next time you have a large piece of equipment to ship overseas and somebody is telling you that RO/RO is the only way to ship it – send us your request and we’ll provide you with the pricing for disassembling and shipping your machine via ocean container service.

Tags: africa containers, approximate cost shipping heavy machinery overseas, approximate rates to ship heavy equipment overseas, average cost to ship machinery overseas?, container filled with dollars, container heavy machinery, container in africa, container loader, container loading, container loading equipment, container loading machine, container over size shipments, container packing, container ship machinery, containers for shipping machinery overseas, cost to ship machinery overseas, countries in need of heavy machinery, excavator container loading, excavator transpot &shipping vessel, flat rack container loaded on ship, flat rack containers excavator, flat racks for overseas shipments, flat racks, ocean shipping, heavy equipment and container ship, heavy equipment container loading, heavy equipment container packing for export in, heavy equipment container shipping, heavy equipment ocean transport, heavy equipment transport, heavy equiptment shipping needed for africa, heavy machinery export, heavy machinery shipping from us, heavy machinery transport containers, how to ship construction equipment to africa, how to ship machinery by container, how to ship machinery overseas, how to ship via flat rack, international machinery shipping, loading flat rack container, loading heavy equipment on container, loading of heavy machine in container, machinery in warehouses for packing and shipping, ocean container loading equipment, oversize overseas shipping containers, requirements for shipping machinery overseas, ro ro flat rack moffit, ship machinery problems, shipping an excavator by container, shipping container, shipping container loaders, shipping container loading equipment, shipping container packing construction equipment, shipping heavy equipment in ocean containers, shipping heavy equipment incontainer, shipping heavy equipment overseas n container, shipping heavy machinery, transporting construction vehicle flat rack container, using container for heavy machinery loader, vessel container ecuador, way of loading flat rack on vessel, where does a flat rack go on a ship