Abu Dhabi Ports Company (ADPC), the master developer of ports and industrial zones, and Abu Dhabi Terminals (ADT) the Container Terminal Operator, have announced the arrival of three of the world’s largest and most modern ship-to-shore (STS) quay cranes at Khalifa Port. 

The Super Post Panamax quay cranes were produced by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry Co Ltd in China at a cost of $28 million. They travelled on specially built ships to Khalifa Port’s container terminal, the first semi-automated container terminal in the region.

One STS crane is 126.5 m high and weighs 1,932 tonnes. It has an outreach of 65 m (22 containers) and a lifting capacity of 90 tonnes.

The three new quay cranes will join the six already operational cranes at Khalifa Port’s container terminal which has a current capacity of 2.5 million teu capacity. In addition, six cutting-edge automated stacking cranes (ASC) have recently joined the former 30 ASCs at Khalifa Port, and a further six are expected to arrive later in Q1, both batches representing an overall investment of $42 million.

Commenting on the recent deliveries, Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi, CEO, ADPC, said:

“After more than 100,000 teu passed through Khalifa Port last year in October, which was the highest number of containers ever handled in a single month in Abu Dhabi, the start of the new year has already been promising and signalled a significant increase in the emirate’s import and export activities over the next 12 months. By investing in our state-of-the-art infrastructure we are further establishing Khalifa Port as one of the best equipped and most technologically advanced ports in the world.”

Martijn Van de Linde, CEO, ADT, added: “The new STS cranes will further increase Khalifa Port’s capacity adding 750,000 teu of throughput capacity to the terminal. We have continued to register double-digit growth in 2013 and the new capacity is required to keep pace with the rapidly growing Abu Dhabi and UAE markets.”

The industry leading STS cranes at Khalifa Port are specifically used for unloading container vessels which have become notably bigger over the past years. Vessels with a container volume of up to 14,000 teu are currently calling at Khalifa Port whose nine STS cranes will be able to handle up to 315 containers per hour (35 containers per crane, per hour).

Khalifa Port’s cutting edge ASCs, which were delivered by Finnish production company Konecranes, are operated through an especially designed operating system. Two ASCs cover one area (stack) in which up to 2,000 teu can be stacked. With the six newly delivered and six expected ASCs, the overall stacking capacity at Khalifa Port’s container yard will increase by 40 per cent.