“Along with the completion of our project to improve Berth 1, these cranes will help deliver faster turn times to our ocean carrier customers, including the largest vessels calling on the US East Coast,” said Griff Lynch, Georgia Ports Authority president and CEO. “No other terminal in the nation can bring more cranes to bear, or match the efficiency, productivity and global connectivity of the Port of Savannah.”
Designed by Konecranes of Finland, the all-electric cranes arrived on the vessel BigLift Barentsz.
Two of the cranes are 295ft tall and two 306ft tall at the highest point. The reach of the cranes is 22 and 24 containers wide, respectively. The taller cranes was offloaded at Berth 1 at Garden City Terminal, while the others were installed on the upriver end of the terminal, at Berth 9.
GPA received a previous batch of four cranes to work the recently renovated Berth 1, which is now capable of serving vessels with a capacity of 16,000-plus twenty-foot equivalent (TEU) container units. The cranes and improved dock increase Garden City Terminal berth productivity by 25% or 1.5 million TEUs of annual capacity.
The new equipment is part of GPA’s $1.9bn infrastructure improvement plan to keep pace with future supply chain needs.
“The ratio of GPA’s economic impact equates to roughly one job per nine TEUs moved,” said Stacy Watson, director of economic and industrial development at GPA. “By expanding our annual capacity by three million TEUs over the next three years, GPA is also increasing its job-supporting capability by more than 300,000 jobs for Georgians.”
Konecranes, meanwhile, has won an order for eight rubber-tyred gantry (RTG) cranes for a new container terminal in Colombia.
The cranes will be delivered to a new container terminal at Puerto Antioquia, which will provide new export and import power for the regional economy of Antioquia and Colombia as a whole. The order was booked earlier in the year.
The order came from Puerto Bahia Colombia de Uraba, the key shareholder of which is the CMA CGM Group, a global player in sea, land, air and logistics solutions. The cranes are fully electric, powered by cable reels connected to the local grid.
“Konecranes’ Ecolifting effort in the form of these electric, cable reel RTGs is a good fit with the CMA CGM Group’s ambition to accelerate the decarbonisation of port terminals on its path to reach net zero carbon by 2050 for all its operations,” said Neil Clegg, sales manager, Konecranes, Port Solutions. “The new RTGs will contribute to the successful launch of operations at the new Colombian container terminal.”
