Salalah Port in Oman, seeking to establish itself as one of the Gulf's finest ports, has notched up a substantial increase in the handling of cargo.

Port authorities said it handled 649,003 TEU in its first full year of operation in 1999, leaving that figure far behind with 1.032 million TEU in 2000.

Nearly all of the cargo handled was transhipment Ñ 98.6 per cent in 1999 and 99.5 per cent last year.

"Currently the port of Salalah can handle the largest container vessels afloat, fully laden at any state of the tide," said marketing specialist Deborah Fonceca. "We are also capable of handling the next generation of container vessels of 10-12,000teu with the facilities we have at present." Shipping lines using the port include Maersk-Sealand, Mediterranean Shipping and Orient Express Line.

She said the port functioned as planned in 2000 but that 2001 would be a challenging year as major investments had been made for installing equipment at berth 4.

The final equipment for the completion of the first four berths at the port arrived in late December and became operational around the end of January 2001.

The equipment, consisting of three super post-panamax gantries and seven rubber-tyred gantries (RTGs), had left ZPMC in Shanghai on 5 December 2000 and was safely discharged by New Year's Day 2001. The port now has a total of 12 gantries with 22 RTGs on 1,236 metres of quay with a depth of 16 metres alongside the full quay length.

"With the final equipment now in place it is estimated that the port will have a capacity of 2.2 million TEU," said WB Burns, director of marketing and sales at the port.

"With sufficient draft and crane size, the port will be able to successfully handle the next generation of container vessels with the infrastructure it now has in place, making it one of the few ports in the world today with this capability."

Salalah Port Services (SPS) Company said the newly deployed gantries were similar to the previous two gantries that were delivered in mid-2000.

They have a 65-tonne capacity at outreach, twin pick capability and an outreach of 22 across the vessel.

"With state-of-the-art operator assist modes, these cranes have proved to be remarkably successful with individual operators achieving 58 moves per hour for single pick operations and 84 containers per hour for tin pick operations," said the company.

It said they had contributed significantly o the port's consistently high productivity and to the recent world record of 255.6 berth moves per hour. That record, reached on 6 December, shattered the previous one of 252.6 moves per hour.

Salalah Port Services is a joint venture, 30 per cent of the investment coming from abroad and the rest from the Omani government and people. The overseas stake is held by Maersk/AP Moeller. The port services company has a 30-year management contract with Sea Land.