Bitumen Shipping: Packed and Bagged Forms

What is bitumen and how does it ship?

Bitumen is a heavy, sticky binder left at the bottom of the crude-oil barrel after the lighter fuels are refined off, and it is the glue in asphalt road surfacing and in roofing and waterproofing products. It ships two ways: packed as a solid in steel drums, jumbo bags or pellets, or molten as a hot liquid in heated tankers. It is not listed in the IMSBC Code.

That last point matters for how the cargo is typed. The IMSBC Code is the rulebook for solid cargoes carried loose in a bulk carrier’s holds, and a commodity earns a dry-bulk profile, a stowage factor, a bulk density and an IMSBC group, only when it has a mainstream loose-bulk form. Refined and paving bitumen has no such form. You cannot pour it loose into a hold the way you pour grain, coal or salt: at ambient temperature it is a stiff solid, and at working temperature it is a liquid that belongs in a tank. So bitumen sits outside the dry-bulk world entirely, and the form it travels in, packed or molten, decides which trade and which vessel handles it.

This page covers the packed form, because that is the form Bulkargo most often books into general-cargo and container tonnage. Packed bitumen is ordinary solid cargo: cooled, set, unitised and secured like any other drummed or bagged product. It moves through the same ports and on the same kinds of ship as the rest of the project cargo and break-bulk trade, rather than down a dedicated liquid lane.

Packed bitumen forms: drums, jumbo bags and pellets

Packed bitumen reaches the market in three main forms. Each is a way of turning a cargo that is otherwise a stiff solid or a hot liquid into a discrete, stackable unit that an ordinary port can handle without heating equipment.

• Steel drums. The classic packed form. Hot bitumen is filled into steel drums of roughly 150 to 200 kg, then cooled so the contents set solid. The drum is sealed, robust and stackable, and it is the form most often containerised for export, or loaded loose into a hold as break-bulk where container service does not run. At destination the receiver melts the drum’s contents back down for use.
• Jumbo bags, also called FIBCs. A jumbo bag, big bag or bulk bag holds a bulk quantity of bitumen in one flexible unit. The word bulk here means a large quantity in a single bag, not loose carriage in a hold. These bags are slung, stacked and almost always stuffed into shipping containers, so bagged bitumen is containerised or break-bulk cargo, never loose dry bulk.
• Pellets and bagged bitumen. Some grades are pelletised, often with a thin coating that stops the pellets fusing, so the product flows and pours like a granular solid into bags or sacks. This form is the easiest to handle at the receiving end and suits smaller or more distant buyers who cannot take a hot delivery.

How packed bitumen is stowed and handled

Because packed bitumen has already been cooled and set, it travels as a stable solid at ambient temperature and needs no heating on the voyage. That is the whole commercial point of packing it: the cargo can move through any general-cargo or container port, on any suitable ship, without the heated tanks, steam coils or thermal-oil systems that molten carriage demands. Heat is only reintroduced at destination, where the receiver melts the drummed, bagged or pelletised product down for use.

Stowage follows ordinary cargo-securing practice rather than bulk-trimming practice. Steel drums are heavy and round, so they are stowed upright on their ends, in tiers, and chocked and dunnaged so they cannot roll or shift with the ship’s motion. Stack height is kept within limits so the lower drums are not crushed by the weight above. In a container the drums are loaded in regular rows, with the floor taking the load and bracing or void-fill closing the gaps so nothing moves in transit. Jumbo bags are stacked square and squared off inside their containers, and pellets or bagged product are palletised and shrink-wrapped like any other bagged commodity.

Two handling points recur with packed bitumen. The first is temperature on the warm side: bitumen softens as it heats, so containers and drums of dark product standing in direct sun on a tropical quay can warm enough for the contents to soften and, in extreme cases, for drums to deform or weep at the seams. Stowage out of direct heat and prompt handling reduce that risk. The second is weight: drummed bitumen is dense, so a container reaches its payload limit on weight well before it fills on volume, and stack heights in the hold are set by the crushing strength of the lower drums, not by the available headroom. Both points are matters of routine securing and planning, and they put packed bitumen firmly on the break-bulk and containerised side of the trade alongside general cargo and break-bulk handling.

Packed bitumen vs molten bitumen

The same refined bitumen ships in two completely different trades depending only on whether it is cooled and packed or kept hot and liquid. The table sets the two side by side.

In short, molten bitumen is carried hot as a liquid bulk cargo in specialised heated tankers, flexitanks and bitutainers, and that liquid trade sits with tanker shipping rather than on this page. Packed bitumen, by contrast, is the form covered here: cooled, unitised and handled as ordinary solid cargo. The molten route wins on volume economics where the lane and the terminals support it; the packed route wins on reach and flexibility, because it can serve any buyer at any port without heated infrastructure.

When to ship bitumen packed

The choice between packed and molten follows the lot size, the destination and the receiving infrastructure, not a single rule. Packed bitumen is the right call when:

• The lot is small to mid-size. Drums, bags and pellets let you ship a few tonnes or a few containers without committing to a parcel-tanker quantity, so they suit traders and buyers who do not move full tanker lots.
• The destination lacks heated handling. Many markets have no terminal that can receive and store hot liquid bitumen. Packed product lands at any ordinary port and is melted down on arrival, which opens markets a molten lane cannot reach.
• The buyer wants storage flexibility. Sealed drums and bagged pellets keep for long periods and can be stored, split and resold in small quantities, where molten cargo has to be used or kept hot.
• The route favours containers. Where there is regular container service, drummed or bagged bitumen rides as ordinary boxed cargo on liner schedules, with all the frequency and reach that brings.

Reach for molten carriage instead when the volume is large, the lane is established and both ends have heated handling, because keeping the cargo liquid in bulk is cheaper per tonne than drumming it. For the packed lots, the booking is a voyage charter or a container slot for break-bulk or containerised cargo, on the same kind of tonnage that carries the rest of the project cargo and break-bulk trade, including the smaller geared ships such as Handysize bulk carriers when a part-cargo or break-bulk stow makes sense. Tell us the form, lot size and destination on a quote request and we will scope the booking.

Common bitumen shipping confusions

Bitumen attracts a few persistent misconceptions, mostly because the same material wears several names and travels in several forms.

• Bitumen is not a dry-bulk cargo. It is IMSBC-unlisted and has no loose-bulk form, so it carries no stowage factor, no bulk density figure and no IMSBC group. It ships packed or molten, never poured loose into a bulk carrier’s holds.
• Bitumen and asphalt are not quite the same word. In much of the world asphalt means the road-surfacing mix of bitumen plus aggregate, while bitumen is the binder alone. In North American usage asphalt often means the binder itself. Either way the binder is what ships, and asphalt shipping in the packed sense usually means drummed or bagged bitumen.
• Asphalt rock is a different cargo again. Natural asphalt rock, also called natural bitumen or gilsonite, is a genuine solid. But even that solid form is IMSBC-unlisted and would be carried only on a competent-authority assessment, typically declared Group C. It is a niche cargo and not the refined product this page covers.
• A bulk bag is not bulk carriage. As above, the bulk in jumbo bag, big bag or bulk bag means a bulk quantity in one bag. Bagged bitumen is a unitised, usually containerised cargo, not dry bulk.

Frequently asked questions

Scope and what this page does not cover

This page covers the packed forms of refined and paving bitumen: steel drums, jumbo bags or FIBCs, and pellets or bagged product, and how they are stowed, secured and handled as break-bulk or containerised cargo. It treats molten bitumen only in passing, because the hot liquid trade belongs with tanker and liquid-bulk shipping and is booked, stowed and insured on entirely different lines. It also does not cover natural asphalt rock or gilsonite, which is a separate niche solid cargo, nor the chemistry or grading of bitumen itself. For the wider handling of unitised and heavy cargo around packed bitumen, see the related pages below.