ABP’s Hull Container Terminal has welcomed two ship-to-shore gantry cranes that will enable the facility to increase capacity to more than 400,000 units per year.
The giant 600-ton and 50-meter high ship-to-shore gantry cranes arrived fully assembled through the lock gates on February 15.
The Liebherr cranes took around eleven months to build in Ireland. They were shipped in three days via a 168-meter vessel called HHL Lagos which has a heavy lift crane on board to place the new cranes on the quayside crane rails.
As informed, the cranes will be fully operational by the beginning of April 2018.
The new cranes are part of a recent GBP 15 million (USD 20.96 million) investment which also includes the purchase of equipment such as reach stackers and tug trailers and the creation of 9,000 square meters of new storage.
ABP has committed to invest a total of GBP 50 million in its container terminals on the Humber – located in Immingham and Hull – in response to continued growth in demand.
“This major investment underlines our confidence in the future as growth in our container business looks set to continue in the years ahead,” Simon Bird, ABP Humber Director, said.
ABP’s four ports on the Humber handle around 13% of all of the UK’s seaborne trade. Every year the ports handle GBP 75 billion worth of trade.