Konecranes has received a major order for 15 Rubber Tired Gantry (RTG) cranes from a new customer, DCT Gdansk S.A. This will be Konecranes’ first RTG delivery to Poland. The cranes are scheduled to be delivered during the second half of 2016, the company said in its press release.
DCT Gdansk is Poland’s largest and fastest-growing container facility, and the only deep-water terminal in the Baltic Sea region having direct ocean vessel calls from the Far East. The terminal handles Polish import and export, transshipment and transit.
The Konecranes RTG cranes on order for DCT Gdansk are high-performance, 16-wheel RTGs with a lifting capacity of 40.6 tons, a stacking height of 1-over-5, and a stacking width of 7 plus truck lane wide. They are all-electric RTGs powered by a cable reel system.
They will be equipped with Konecranes Active Load Control system, which prevents container sway and significantly improves container handling performance. DGPS Autosteering is included, which keeps the crane on a pre-programmed, straight driving path. They will also be equipped with Auto-Path Optimizer, which uses the container profile measured by the Konecranes Stack Collision Prevention System to calculate the optimal path between the current container slot and the destination container slot. The cranes will also be equipped with Konecranes’ TRUCONNECT® remote monitoring system.
Mr Maciek Kwiatkowski, CEO of DCT Gdansk, commented: “This is an important purchase for us and our evaluation process was very rigorous. We were convinced by Konecranes’ technology, track record and ability to support the machines for the long-term.”
“Winning this order from DCT Gdansk is very satisfying. It strengthens Konecranes’ position as the leading supplier of container cranes in the Baltic Sea Region. It will be our first delivery of RTGs to Poland, a sign of the excellence of our technology and ability to support our cranes. We’ll make sure that DCT Gdansk’s confidence in us is justified,” says Erkki Salminen, Sales Manager Europe, Port Cranes, Konecranes.
DCT Gdansk received its first vessel in June 2007. Since January 2010, DCT Gdansk started receiving on a weekly basis 8,000 TEU container vessels departing from the Far East. This direct connectivity with Asia boosted DCT Gdansk’s development as it became the Baltic Sea hub, achieving 180% growth in 2010 and made DCT one of the fastest growing terminals in the world. The new era for DCT opened in May 2011, when the facility started handling the Maersk Line’s E-type class container vessels with the capacity of 15,500 TEU, the world’s largest container ships at that time. In 2012, the container terminal handled its second millionth TEU since the operations kick-off, and closed the year with yet another annual volume record of approximately 900,000 TEU. In August 2013 DCT Gdansk serviced its first Triple E class vessel, Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller, in its maiden voyage. In 2013 the container terminal handled more than 1,150,000 TEU. This record has permanently put DCT on the map of the world’s major container terminals and ensured its position as the biggest container terminal in terms of volume in the Baltic area.