HHLA beefs up its gantry cranes fleet to eight

Three additional container gantry cranes for Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG's (HHLA) Container Terminal Burchardkai (CTB) have arrived in Hamburg on 14 August at 9 p.m.. They can handle the latest generation of mega-ships. This means that HHLA now has a total of eight of these gantry cranes at the CTB. As soon as the three new gantry cranes have gone into operation, CTB will be able to handle ships with a capacity of 20,000 standard containers (TEU) and more at two berths, the Port of Hamburg said in a press release.
 
The three state-of-the-art container gantry cranes arrived in Hamburg on 14 August after an approximately ten-week journey from Shanghai to Hamburg. Before taking charge of them from the global market leader, ZPMC, CTB staff on site carried out extensive tests on the container gantry cranes, which were produced in the vicinity of Shanghai. They will be prepared for use over the next few months before the final inspection. They will be put into operation successively at Container Terminal Burchardkai (CTB) at berth 5/6 from the end of 2016. HHLA will then have two berths for handling the latest generation of mega-ships at the CTB.

Dr. Stefan Behn, member of the Executive Board of Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA), emphasises the significance of the new handling equipment: "The cranes which have now arrived are a key part of the long-term programme of upgrading the CTB. The number of calls made by particularly large vessels has been on the rise for quite a while. That's why it's important for us to be able to provide our shipping company customers with two berths at the CTB in future, where we can handle the mega-ships. This ensures the high level of productivity that our customers are used to and provides for the flexibility that is necessary for handling these very large vessels."

The new gantry cranes from ZPMC are designed for container ships with 24 transverse container rows. Thanks to their 74-metre jibs, they are very well equipped to handle ships with a loading capacity of 20,000 TEU and more. These ships handle 5,000 to 6,000 containers (70,000 to 84,000 tonnes of cargo) per call in Hamburg. The height of the cranes' jibs has also been optimised and they can now handle nine containers placed on top of one another on deck. And the new gantry cranes can also operate in tandem mode. They can move two 40-foot containers or four 20-foot containers with one hub. Each container gantry crane weighs 2,400 tonnes and can handle a maximum payload of 110 tonnes.

The cranes were transported on a converted tanker. This ship - which was originally designed for a load of 80,000 tonnes - had no trouble handling the cranes' total load of around 7,200 tonnes.

Dr. Behn on the further programme of expansion at the CTB: "We will put the four additional automated storage blocks that are currently being built into operation in 2017. This will provide us with greater capacity and flexibility, which we can use to absorb the peak loads resulting from the mega-ships. We are also planning the expansion of the rail terminal at the CTB. The CTB rail terminal is the second largest in Europe, and we handle almost as many rail containers there as the entire port in Rotterdam. The programme of expansion at the CTB will help us to further optimise our highly efficient handling processes."

A further two cranes are currently being constructed at the HHLA Container Terminal Tollerort. With this berth and the two at the CTB, HHLA will then have three berths for handling especially large container vessels.