Evergreen Group's Colon Container Terminal, S.A. (CCT) held a ceremony to mark the completion of its newly built Berth No. 4, the company said in its press release.
CCT is located on the Atlantic side of Panama Canal and enjoys a dominant strategic location as a transit hub for North America, South America and the Caribbean. In light of the demand for expanded terminal facilities for large vessels following completion of the Canal's expansion program, Evergreen has planned, designed and built the new Berth No. 4 to upgrade its terminal services.
Berth No. 4 is 16.5 meter in depth and is equipped with three super post-panamax gantry cranes capable of handling 23 rows of containers. Together with Berth No. 3, the facility offers an overall quay length of 640 meters, which can accommodate larger container ships of up to 14,000 TEU.
Berth No. 4 is undergoing various system tests and is scheduled to commence operation in the first quarter of 2016. The overall handling capacity of CCT is expected to increase from its current level of 1.5 million TEU to 2.4 million. Besides, CCT is continuing with the next stage of expansion program to further increase the quay length of Berth No. 3 and Berth No. 4 to 780 meters. After its expected completion around the first quarter of 2017, the facility will be able to handle two large vessels of 12,000 - 14,000 TEU simultaneously.