By Richie Lin

In order to protect the environment from climate change, there are more and more people choosing the electrical equipment powered by batteries instead of fossil-fueling equipment. Therefor there will be so much more transportations required by the battery products as to require fundamental knowledge about handling the transportation safe and sound. Before we explore the proper transportation modes for the battery products, we should understand the meaning of UN number. The UN number is a four-digit code used to identify hazardous substances and articles during transportation. It is assigned by the United Nations Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods. The UN number is internationally recognized and helps in the proper identification, handling, and transportation of hazardous materials. It provides crucial information about the nature of the substance or article, such as its level of danger, potential risks, and appropriate safety measures. Battery products are classified as the Class 9: Miscellaneous Dangerous Substances and Articles - Substances and articles that present a danger during transportation but do not fit into the previous eight classes. This class includes environmentally hazardous substances, elevated temperature substances, and other hazardous materials.

Battery products are also can be separated into lithium-ion battery kind and lithium metal battery kind. Lithium-ion battery is rechargeable and lithium metal battery is non-rechargeable. Since people choose more and more battery rechargeable products nowadays, so we focus on the explanations of transporting lithium-ion battery products. There are three major UN numbers for lithium-ion battery products, which are UN 3480, UN 3481, and UN 3171. UN 3480 refers to transporting only lithium-ion battery units. And the packing instruction number is PI 965. UN 3481 refers to transporting products having lithium-ion battery packaged with the equipment and lithium-ion battery packaged inside the equipment. The packing instruction numbers are PI 966 and PI 967 separately. UN 3171 refers to transporting vehicles packaged with lithium-ion battery inside such as electrical cars and electrical bicycles. These three UN numbers all require MSDS and UN 38.3 test report for the shipping lines and airlines to evaluate if accepting the cargo or not. And 1.2M drop test will be also required by the airlines. Even though UN 3480, UN 3481 and UN 3171 are classified as 9 dangerous goods, which are not very dangerous goods compared with other class dangerous goods, they still require professional companies to handle the international transportations.

FCL market rate reference in week 23:

• Asia main ports to USAWC USD 1700~2000 per 40GP; 
• Asia main ports to USAEC and Gulf coast USD 2500~2700 per 40GP; 
• Asia main ports for IPI points of USA is USD 3900~4500 per 40GP.
• Asia main ports to Europe base ports and West Mediterranean: USD 2000~3500 per 40GP.

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