A further six cantilever rail-mounted gantry (CRMG) cranes arrived in the River Mersey on Thursday, October 6, ready for installing and commissioning at the Liverpool2 deep-water container terminal.
Produced by Chinese manufacturer ZPMC, which also supplied the five ship-to-shore cranes and other CRMGs already on site, these six complete the set of 12 required for phase 1 of the terminal. Ultimately the site will have eight STS and 22 CRMG cranes as part of a £100m ($122m) equipment investment.
The cranes will be capable of performing an average of 20 moves per hour, with semiautomated control linked to the port’s new Navis N4 terminal operating system. They have a 40 tonne under-spreader capacity and a maximum container lift height above quay level of 21m under spreader (6+1 containers).
Mark Whitworth, chief executive of Peel Ports, said, “These cranes are the final major piece of the infrastructure jigsaw as we approach the formal opening next month “Liverpool2, supported by our wider logistics offering and the port’s strategic location, will provide many shippers with a route to U.K. and Irish markets that helps them to cut costs, congestion and carbon emissions.”
The cranes originally set off from Nantong in August on board the Zhenhua 8 ship, passing south-east Asia, India, the Arabian Peninsula and through the Suez canal en route to Liverpool in a 49 day journey of over 20,000km (13,730 m, 11,930nm).
The first batch of CRMGs arrived in May 2016 and the STS cranes have been visible on the Liverpool shoreline since November 2015.