Port of Savannah takes delivery of four super Post-Panamax cranes
All four of the super post-Panamax ship-to-shore cranes that arrived at the Port of Savannah in June are now fully operational at Georgia Ports Authority’s Garden City Terminal, the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) said.
The cranes arrived on a specialized vessel June 5. After the cranes were offloaded, crews began raising the booms, and the electrical and machinery housings roughly 100 feet to their proper position. Additional on-site work included elevator installation and final wiring connections.
The first of the new cranes went into service in August, with additional cranes coming online every few weeks. Today, the fourth new super post-Panamax crane begins moving cargo. Each new crane can lift up to 65 tons.
When the deeper Panama Canal opens in 2015, the average vessel calling on the U.S. East Coast is expected to shift from a capacity of 4,500 twenty-foot equivalent container units (TEUs) to approximately 9,000 TEUs. The larger vessels will offer 20 percent to 40 percent savings on shipping costs.
The port currently owns a fleet of 27 cranes, including nine post-Panamax and 16 super post-Panamax cranes.
Lynch said ships calling on Savannah already enjoy immediate service upon arrival, instead of having to wait for a leased berth space to open. He added that the improvements to the Port of Savannah’s crane fleet demonstrate the GPA’s commitment to expand capacity, provide more opportunities for growth and greater flexibility to meet customer needs.
Georgia’s deepwater ports and inland barge terminals support more than 352,000 jobs throughout the state annually and contribute $18.5 billion in income, $66.9 billion in revenue and $2.5 billion in state and local taxes to Georgia’s economy. The Port of Savannah was the second busiest U.S. container port for the export of American goods by tonnage in FY2011. It also handled 8.7 percent of the U.S. containerized cargo volume and 12.5 percent of all U.S. containerized exports in FY2011. Check out GPA’s Youtube channel here.