As a result the Asian Development Bank (ADB) increased its growth forecast for 2011 to 7% from 6.8%, while lowering inflation projection to 8.5% this year and 7.5% next year. “The shift from strong fiscal and monetary stimulus implemented during the global recession to a more balanced policy stance helped to stabilise financial and economic conditions and, together with the global economic recovery, paved the way for solid economic growth this year,” the report said. These growth figures will raise questions about the future and if Vietnam could sustain this growth – Vietnam’s nine-month economic growth was 6.52%, a “relatively high rise” compared with last year’s 4.62% over the same period, according to the General Statistics Office.

Trade developments
These impressive figures are contributed to the development of the country’s ports and international trade. For example Vietnam is working towards improving its trade process with a single window customs pilot project backed by the US Trade and Development Agency. “This pilot project will help to increase revenue, enforce trade compliance regulations and reduce the cost of cargo movement into Vietnam, an increasingly important partner for the United States in Southeast Asia,” US Ambassador Michael W Michalak said when the USD718,600 grant was signed back in September. The project aims to effectively cut down customs clearance processing time in the country and develop trade and transit. Moreover, if the project is successful, it may serve as the model for a possible Association of Southeast Asian Nations single window trading and customs processing system to be launched in 2012. It will consist of a feasibility study and pilot project for the new system to determine trade and custom needs and recommend new systems.

New port developments
Another contributing factor is the creation of a new port infrastructure with joint ventures from major international terminal operators and local businesses. In the Ho Chi Minh City port area alone a total of four new container terminals are planned to open between 2011 and 2013, including the Cai Mep International Terminal (CMIT). CMIT Chief Commercial Officer, Malcolm Gregory, observed that the increasing need for deep-water facilities will be a significant factor in utilisation forecasts for Southern Vietnam container traffic in the years ahead.  “Growth in trade and corresponding container traffic at Southern Vietnam’s gateway Ho Chi Minh City port complex is jumping, and in response there has been tremendous activity in terminal investment,” said Gregory, noting the 1.1 million TEU annual capacity of the Cai Mep International Terminal, part of the APM Terminals Global Port and Terminal Network, and scheduled to open in January 2011. “Sufficient access channel depth will be one of the primary determining factors of which facilities cater to which segments of Vietnam’s container trade,” Gregory added. Water depth of 14m is required for non-tide restricted access for vessels up to 8,000 TEU-capacity which are expected to be entering the Vietnam trade. A lack of modern road and rail infrastructure keep much of Vietnam’s container transportation inland by barge service, which is projected to account for almost 50% of deep water terminal traffic in 2010, adding to capacity requirements. “Long-haul Transpacific and Europe trades, representing nearly 30% of Ho Chi Minh City port traffic, will continue to migrate to the new deep-water terminals as newer, larger vessels come into service, so there is a very real need for capacity and capability expansion, but new project completion dates  need to be aligned with expected market need,” said Gregory.

Running in to trouble
Container volume at the Ho Chi Minh City and Cai Mep port, which handle approximately two out of every three TEU in Vietnam, surged by 16% in the first half of 2010 leading to a full year 2010 estimated throughput of close to 4.2million TEU. But there might be a sting in the tail for those who are calling at these ports. Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance has promised to lower port fees in response to letters received from the European Chamber of Commerce (EuroCham) in Ho Chi Minh City in April and August of this year. The EuroCham letters pointed out that fees for the Cai Mep–Thi Vai port are as much as two to four times more expensive compared to other ports in the region, particularly Singapore and Malaysia. Local authorities are considering port fee adjustment policies that would be applicable to all ports in the country according to the letter sent by the Ministry of Finance. Moreover, the ministry is putting together a proposal that will cut port and maritime fees for vessels with more than 50,000 tonnes capacity docking at the Cai Mep–Thi Vai port. A letter sent by EuroCham to authorities dated April 5 detailed costs, in USD, for a 93,496 GRT vessel in different ports in South East Asia as a total for Cai Mep (Vietnam) of USD 36,389 (including pilotage, 12 hours dockage and port dues) compared to Tanjung Pelapas (Malaysia) of USD 8,552, PSA (Singapore) of USD 8,547, Port Klang (Malaysia) of USD 9,035 and Laem Chabang (Thailand) of USD 18,573. This huge price difference for port calls in the Cai Mep–Thi Vai area affects the country’s trade competitiveness compared to other similar ports in the region according to EuroCham. The Cai Mep–Thi Vai port in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province opened in 2009 and is becoming the largest deep-water port in South Vietnam. Currently, only a limited number of vessels go to the port regularly because of the higher charges. The ministry says the price difference between the Cai Mep–Thi Vai port and other ports in the region are due to various levels of port development, location and management.

Some good news
Despite these charges there might be some good news for Cai Mep Ports as it will function as a major hub for goods coming from Cambodia. The Saigon Newport Corporation has recently signed an agreement to ship goods to and from Phnom Penh Autonomous Port. Bui Van Quy, General Director of Saigon Newport Corporation (SNC), stated that the additional link to both Cat Lai and Cai Mep ports in Vietnam would enable reduced goods transfer times. The new service is set to run two times a week, loading 128 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) per boat, with transfer times of around 34 hours. “We commit to provide a shipping service with confidence, short times and quality to our customers,” he said. Van Quy said the decision to connect shipping services between his company and the Phnom Penh port was made in response to growing demand for Cambodia freight routes. SNC is a leading operator in Vietnamese shipment and operates 22 subsidiaries, specialising in port processing, stock control and construction.
Hy Pavy, General Director of the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port, said the link would help Cambodian goods be transported to an international environment, as Cai Mep acts as a link between the Kingdom and United States and European markets. According to figures obtained from Phnom Penh Autonomous Port, 53,011 TEU of goods were shipped in the first 10 months of 2010, a 49% increase on the 35,648 TEU transported last year.

In search for investors
The Dong Thap Province in southern Vietnam is seeking VND21 trillion (USD1.07 billion) in investments to upgrade its road and port systems by 2020. The province is known for its agriculture-based economy, but is working towards shifting to more industry and trade-oriented businesses. It wants to expand trade capacity by developing ports IDI, Bao Mai, Sa Dec, Trang Quoc and others in the Hong Ngu commune. The Dong Thap Province is also looking for investors for its planned USD30 million automobile, bike and tractor spare-part production facilities and its USD20million agricultural machinery and equipment production plant. From January to July, Dong Thap authorities spent VND1.12 trillion to upgrade infrastructure facilities and attract more foreign investment.

Historically,  ‘cold ironing’  is a US navy term derived from the fact that once the on board gensets have been stopped, the iron/steel mass of the whole engine room gets “cold”! Shore power has attracted a lot of attention recently as a way to reduce emissions at two levels:

 local diesel engines emissions which are increasingly considered as a public health issue for the populations located around port areas,   

global shipping industry CO2 emissions, as part of the numerous corrective actions identified to reduce climate change risks.

Ideally, as illustrated in figure 1, shore power could become a fully optimised extension of the shore power network towards the vessels at berth, by allowing ships to get connected to lower emission – lower cost power sources.

The shore power economical challenge

Figure 2 illustrates the possible strategies ship owners could have on this market, taking into account the typical hour by hour, week by week, fluctuating price of the on shore power market.

As an example in this figure, we have set this onboard generation cost line in the middle of the typical hourly shore power market price. This means that during day peak hours, when demand by other (shore based) consumers is high, shore power price is significantly higher than onboard generation, and that a ship owner’s interest is to keep his gensets running…conversely, during low demand period, typically at night, his interest is to switch to shore power to get access to lower cost sources of energy. Unfortunately the reality is presently quite different, and there are some ship owners and terminal operators who currently may comment ‘off record’ that shore power is just a fancy gimmick invented by some ‘greenish’ bureaucrat from the Californian Air Resource Board (or even worse the European Commission..!) to kill their profits. (figure 3!)

This may be seen as a cynical view but such statements should not be neglected by any shore power promoter, as it reflects the truth: in most cases, shore power is not profitable for ship owners, and out of the 60 000 +merchant vessels currently in operations worldwide, only a couple of hundred are using it, a clear indication that it is not a profitable operation. In fact, while reviewing CO2 emissions reduction strategies, Det Norske Veritas class society recently ranked shore power as one of the least efficient CO2 emissions abatement technologies, behind no less than 20 others. Nevertheless, several factors, beyond mandatory requirements, may change shore power use, as identified in figure 2:

– On board (diesel) generation fuel costs may rise sharply if oil barrel price rises and if, as is already the case in some areas, use of low sulphur fuels becomes mandatory;

– Conversely as identified in figure 4, the development of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as a fuel for the shipping industry could become a very attractive solution against shore power;

– On board generation price may as well increase if local or global emissions taxes are implemented;

– Subsidies, especially to cover the ship owner’s and terminal’ s  expenses may be implemented (and has been in most present cases for Capital Expenses, but Sweden is, for example, considering to deliver shore power tax free to make it competitive for the long term), but cannot be considered as a long term solution;

– And last but not the least, in the long term, the shore power industry can increase its competiveness by reducing, through innovation, its Capital and Operational Expenses, as NG2 is proposing with PLUG.

PLUG shore power solution

PLUG (Power Generation during Loading & Unloading), is an innovative solution to drastically increase shore power competitiveness, both in terms of economical and environmental benefits. It is  game changing technology based on a very innovative connector system, leading to much easier and efficient operations: as soon as the vessel is at berth , the crew simply has to slide out a beam above the quay, to which is attached the ship side power socket and drop a chain toward the quay side connector.

The chain is equipped (figure  5) at its end with a triangular cross section shuttle bar, which as soon as it is within reach, is grabbed by a diaphragm system which guide it towards the quay side connector . Getting further down, inside the connector, the shuttle bar gets into contact with a set of three rollers which force it to rotate and get indexed with the connector electrical contacts.  Further down, the shuttle bar slots into a mechanism which locks it with the connector. The diaphragm can then be re opened and the crew can hoist up towards the ship side socket the quay side connector and the power cables attached to it (see figure 6).

When it gets into the ship side socket, the shuttle bar is guided by another set of three rollers and rotates again to align in front of each connector and socket electrical contacts. When the connector gets further up, the socket electrical contacts push open the quayside connector contacts and the connection is established.           These unique features make PLUG the world first solution to perform a safe, multi mega watt, high voltage, connection in less than a minute. Another feature is that the power exchange capability can be optimised to meet with the same design, and a single PLUG unit, most of the world’s fleet requirements, under up to 11 000 Volts, as illustrated in Figure 7.

This means for example that, as illustrated in figure 8, a single PLUG unit can cover the power exchange requirement of most container carriers up to 8000 TEU. Only the larger ones will need to install two PLUG units in parallel to fulfill their needs, using two adjacent quay side PLUG interfaces (Fig 9).

Application to container carriers

The container carrier case is certainly one of the most challenging for shore power, as it competes here with other potentially very cost effective solutions to meet CARB or general CO2 emissions reduction requirements, such as  on board gas power generation. Taking advantage of PLUG compactness, we propose to install it (see figure 10) within the side passageways which are fitted along container carriers above the side ballast tanks, preferably at the level of the Engine room main switch board, to reduce the length of the routing of HV cables between PLUG and the vessel’s main switchboard, reducing installation costs and duration. Other benefits include simplified mechanical installation as the PLUG interface can be fitted directly within the vessel’s existing steel structure. A key saving compared to manual connector solutions, which requires two cable reels for power exchange in excess of 4 MVA, is that a single ship side and quay PLUG unit can provide up to 6 MVA. This drastically reduces ship side installation costs for vessels requiring between 4 to 6 MVA. As mentioned above, for power exchange above 6 MVA, another PLUG unit can be used in parallel, installed in the side passageway, in front of the next quay side shore power interface. This offers a power exchange capability of up to 12 MVA without any significant additional cost for the terminal infrastructure. On the terminal side (see figure 11) the PLUG interface will be a sliding basket located just above the water alongside the quay, so that the HV cables can festoon under it under the water. Although rudimentary, this is very cost effective and reliable cable storage and management system, taking advantage of the available volume created by the quay side fenders between the quay and the vessel sides. In terms of operations and safety (see figure 12) PLUG has a negligible quay side foot print and does not require shore side operator, so impact on the (cargo and others…) operations and safety hazards are kept to a minimum.

PLUG Project Status
PLUG has been officially released on the market at the September 2010 Shipbuilding, Machinery and Marine technology fair in Hamburg, where a full size PLUG was on display, demonstratin
g, among other features, its one minute connection/disconnection capability.

In parallel:

a PLUG /AMP adaptor is developed to propose PLUG for California Terminals already equipped with AMP, (see figure 13).  Due to the gains it brings in terms of speed of operations and reduction of man power costs, such an adaptor is expected to require a return on investment period of one or two years for the terminal operator.

California emission abatement requirements
The first benefit of PLUG technology would be increased levels of safety when compared to traditional methods currently in use. Secondly, PLUG would bring benefits in terms of public health, as PLUG, by allowing to connect the vessel to shore power from the first to the last minute of its call, without requiring any quay side operator who may generates extra delays if they are not readily available, will increase the duration of the effective connection to shore power, leading to the corresponding further gains in emissions reduction. With regard to short duration calls, CARB, certainly based on manual connectors limitations, has exempted vessels docking for less than three hours, this could be reconsidered with PLUG, down, let’s say to half an hour,  leading to further emissions reductions. This possibility to increase the rate of use of the whole terminal side shore power infrastructure should be especially attractive for ports which are in a second port of call situation, having shorter berthing time, such as Oakland for example. Thirdly, PLUG technology would achieve higher cost effectiveness for port and terminal operators, as PLUG reduces drastically the man power costs and the capital expenses while  increasing the rate of use of the whole infrastructure by 20 %.

Conclusion
By mixing “California” and “innovation” within the same question, the title of this paper was certainly making the answer an easy one: there is room for innovation to meet Californian shore power requirements. The author’s opinion would go even further by stating that there is not only room, but that there is  a need for shore power innovations to makes this solution competitive compared to other technologies, especially onboard gas fuelled power generation, and PLUG is certainly only one of them! 

This article was published in the November 2010 issue of World Port Development. To receive a pdf of the article in its original format including charts and pictures please send an email to archive@worldportdevelopment.com

One in the nest…

World Port Development brings you an update on the RTG-RMG market and highlights the new ‘nested RMGs’ concept proposed by Aecom.

The last 18 months have been difficult times for port and terminal operators and cargo handling equipment manufacturers alike. Due to the decline in container traffic many operators started to carefully plan for the purchase of new equipment which has had a knock-on effect on the equipment manufacturers. And although the market is picking up and operators are seeing an increase in container throughput, during the difficult period numerous orders were delayed or even cancelled but a few have materialised. “The Yard Crane (RTG/RMG) business in the established market has been picking up since June 2010,” said Tuomas Saastamoinen, Sales & Marketing Director, Port Cranes at Finland-based Konecranes. “However, the positive signals are still weak and the next few months will show if the development is solid. The emerging countries were largely unaffected by the downturn, and the business has been active all the time, especially in Asia.” Ireland-based Liebherr Container Cranes has recently delivered two (2) Rail Mounted Stacking Cranes (RMG) to the NCC facility Ust-Luga Container Terminal in Russia. Whilst these are the first Liebherr RMG container cranes supplied to Russia, they follow a previous order from NCC for a Ship-to-Shore (STS) crane at their terminal in Novorossiysk. According to the manufacturer each crane has a rail span of 22.30m with operational outreach on either side of 11.50m and 3.20m respectively. Lift height is 9.50m and safe working load is 40 tonnes under spreader. The company has also recently completed the delivery of six mega-max STS container cranes and ten Rubber Tyre Gantry cranes (RTG) to Gulf Stevedoring Contracting Co Ltd in Saudi Arabia. Three of the six STS and five of the ten RTGs were installed at the Jeddah North Container Terminal. The other three STS and five RTGs were supplied to Jubail Commercial Port – the first cranes to be supplied by Liebherr. The STS container cranes have a waterside outreach of 60m, span of 30m and a landside backreach of 16m, height under spreader is 41m. Safe working load is 65 tonnes under the twinlift spreader and 75 tonnes under hookbeam. A DC crane drive has been installed with their in-house Digivert speed control.  The heavy duty RTG cranes are of 16 wheel configuration, span six containers plus a truck lane and stack one over five containers high. At Jeddah North Container Terminal these new container cranes work alongside the previous supplied Liebherr Super Post-Panamax cranes and RTGs. A total of eight (8) STS container cranes and twenty (20) RTGs now operate at the terminal. At the end of 2009, Austria-based Hans Kuenz commissioned another four (4) rail-mounted container gantry cranes for German client Eurogate. Eurogate operates deep sea terminals on the North Sea, in the Mediterranean region and on the Atlantic Ocean, with excellent connections to the European hinterland. The Eurogate container terminal at Hamburg is currently using six large-vessel berths, while Bremerhaven is Eurogate´s largest container terminal. Between 2002 and 2008, Kuenz installed eight RMGs for the train terminals.  The latest RMGs were installed at the Hamburg and Bremerhaven harbour rail heads and are designed as a two-girder bridge. The steel construction of the gantry consists of the hinged post, the fixed post and the main girders with suspension. The hoisting rope reeving for the container hoisting gear is executed as a rigid rope-tower. This system enables swing-free travel in gantry and trolley direction, as well as with the slewing gear and the company claims that this guarantees efficient handling. In July 2010 Konecranes received its second RTG order from Turkey this year. The order is for five electrically-fed RTG cranes to be delivered to port operator Nemport in Nemrut, Aliaga Bay. These RTGs will be the first electrically-fed, eco-efficient cranes to be operated in Turkey and have a lifting capacity of 40 tonnes. “During the past few years, Konecranes has been mainly focusing on environmental features and improving the eco-efficiency of their equipment even further,” said Saastamoinen. These electrically-fed RTGs are equipped with cable reels, and reduce local emissions by up to 95%. The cranes run on electricity from the local grid and not from a diesel generator. They do not use hydraulics, stack one-over-6 containers high and are seven plus truck lane wide. Delivery is scheduled for March 2011.

New developments
Despite an understandable reticence to divulge details about new developments we can report some new technology including the rigid-rope tower on the Hans Kuenz RMG to guarantee efficient handling, the in-house Digivert speed control on the Liebherr RTG and the new generation fuel-saving systems from Konecranes. Indeed, there are several ways to increase productivity and efficiency but this means that you have to dig a little bit deeper. For example Hans Kuenz has patented a rotating travelling gear for RMGs. The company noticed that the lifetime of the wheels is limited by the wear of the wheel flanges. This wear is caused by off-track running of the wheels. The amount of wear caused by off-track running can also be influenced by tolerances and temperature changes. Therefore the patented solution allows for swiveling of the travel unit in the horizontal direction to compensate for any inclination of the travel unit. As a result all wheels are running on the track. Stabilisers on both sides of the travel unit make it possible for optimised transmission of the forces to the steel structure. This solution enables a major wear-reduction of the wheel flanges, which means a significant increase in the lifetime of the wheels. But it is not only technology that can improve productivity. Innovative ideas as seen at the Container Terminal Altenwerder in Hamburg, Germany, where two different size RMGs (one is smaller than the other) move along the same track and the smaller RMG can move under the larger one providing the operator with the possibility to operate two containers at the same time in the container stacking yard are nowadays being applied.  Such a design or layout of the stacking yard by using RTG/RMG to the max is of interest to operators that are planning or re-designing the layout of their terminal. According to Louis Klusmeyer, Project Manager at US-based BergerABAM, RMG cranes are increasingly used at intermodal rail yards in the US for reasons that include higher container throughput, higher densities, zero diesel emissions, and extremely quiet operation. As a result conceptual design and planning studies have evaluated the installation of RMG cranes at numerous intermodal rail yards throughout the United States. “Several reasons also lead to the expectation of higher productivity for RMG cranes in intermodal yards. The new generation of RMG cranes is capable of cycle times of up to 40 to 50 lifts per hour. Also, RMG cranes can pick a container from an inside stack without moving all the outside containers. The combination of faster cycle time and improved pickability results in fewer, faster moves from stack to truck,” says Klusmeyer. Based on the RMG concept another design was created whereby two RMGs are working in tandem. Mark Sisson, Principal Engineer at US-based AECOM explains: “The next generation of RMG intermodal terminals may take advantage of a nested style of operation, where two groups of RMGs work together as a team. One group will service gate trucks and the storage buffer, and the other group will work trains and the storage buffer. In a nested RMG system, the train RMGs can work uninterrupted 24/7.”  Sisson continues to explain that because they [the cranes] are able to work at much higher levels of productivity nested RM
G systems will work best at high volume terminals where land is limited. Nested systems are capital intensive in that a large number of expensive RMGs are required, but they allow for maximum economies of scale be generating more throughput per acre or per foot of working track. At high volumes, nested RMGs will likely result in the lowest overall cost per container handled, especially if the RMGs are automated. Nested RMGs will require sophisticated systems to prevent collisions between the two groups of RMGs, but these types of systems have been used with great success in marine terminals for some years. Both unified and nested RMG systems can work with a very high level of automation. There is no need for the drivers to be located on the crane since one remote driver is capable of managing several RMGs simultaneously. This type of automation is increasingly common on marine terminals, and rail operators are likely to follow suit for the same reasons: increased safety and productivity combined with decreased labour cost. The first nested RMG concept is in place at BNSF’s Memphis facility. “Although no one concept is optimal for all terminals, nested RMGs offer many powerful advantages in high volume intermodal terminals. They can only be expected to become more popular as land and labour costs increase and automation technology continues to mature,” Sission concluded.

“This methodology involves planning the discharging and loading of containers on the same bay of the vessel.  So, instead of finishing a discharge across the vessel before doing a load operation, this is done simultaneously,” explains Hector Danisa, TPT’s Assistant Terminal Executive of the Western Province terminals. This internationally recognised practise lends itself to faster operation and savings by minimising empty trips for both haulers and cranes. Shipping lines also enjoy the benefits of increased productivity, vessel turnaround time and efficiency. The challenges associated with dual cycle operations include identifying suitable vessels with an even split of exports and imports and ensuring they are planned properly to facilitate this type of work, says Danisa.  In addition, resourcing the terminal appropriately for quicker productivity and smarter planning of the stack could become a challenge.  Early in October, dual cycle operations were piloted at the Cape Town Terminal as a collaborative initiative between TPT and container shipping line Maersk. The terminal has since worked on three vessels with the dual cycle operation, with the most recent being the Maersk Dryden container vessel on 3 November.  The terminal achieved excellent performance on this vessel by reaching a GCH (container moves per gross crane hour) of 34 GCH and ship working hour (SWH) rate of 82 moves (SWH is the number of containers moved by the cranes working on a vessel in one hour, which is a key performance indicator for shipping lines to measure productivity). The performance represented a 41% improvement on the terminal’s average GCH of 24.

“Some glitches are expected in the initial period but the most important thing is that a new way of operation has been introduced and eventually only benefits can accrue from it,” said Dakalo Mboyi, Operations General Manager Maersk Western Cape. She added that the productivity improvement and other initiatives witnessed in the last few months at the terminal had been “great”.

New crane concept

The need to increase productivity with terminal operators is not something new and APM Terminals (part of the AP Moller-Maersk consortium) has been looking at ways of improving this for a long time. Although numerous options have been evaluated, such as tandem lift and dual cycle operations, there is still a need to explore other solutions. At a recent conference, Ross Clarke, APM Terminals Head of Design & Operations for New Terminals presented an important innovation to improve productivity – the development of a revolutionary new container crane concept. He explained that in late 2006, a cross-functional team of APM Terminals staff were brought together for an Innovation brain storming session, to find ways in which they [APM Terminals] could deliver a quantum leap improvement in service delivery to customers. According to Clarke, dozens of ideas were generated, nothing was off?limits, and some of the ideas really pushed the boundaries of conventional thinking. According to Clarke, even magnetic levitation which may hold some promise in the future was evaluated, but perhaps a bit more development is needed before it can be practical for terminal operations. However, after some filtering of the ideas one idea in particular stood out as having potential to deliver a quantum leap in service, and stood a reasonable chance of being “do?able.” Angelo de Jong, a young engineer working in APM Terminals Innovation Department had come up with an idea to eliminate the physical constraint imposed by the width of today’s STS cranes; which makes it impossible for two cranes to simultaneously handle containers on adjacent bays of a ship. This imposes a real physical limit on the maximum berth productivity which can be achieved with today’s STS cranes. The inability of conventional STS cranes to work on adjacent bays has to be taken into account by ship planners when planning loading and discharge sequences, to avoid crane clashes, which can occur even with very good planning if one crane works significantly faster or slower than another, or if a crane encounters a unexpected problem. Every year the world container ship fleet comprises more and more ultra?large container vessels. Only 5 years ago, the number of ships in the world with more than 10,000 TEU-capacity was zero, today there are 73 and by 2012, the number will have more than doubled to 180. Time is money for these large ships, and consistently higher berth productivity through increased crane intensity and greater planning flexibility offers potential to reduce port time for these large ships by up to 50%. In many terminals today, throughput capacity is limited by berth capacity. Increasing berth capacity by increasing crane productivity enables greater annual terminal throughput to be handled, provided there is sufficient yard capacity.

New crane design

For several months after the ‘innovation workshop’, a small team of APM Terminals engineering and operations experts developed the idea of an STS crane design where cranes ran along an elevated rail enabling crane operations in adjacent bays into an increasingly feasible concept. In its early stages, the new crane structure was quite a bit heavier than existing STS cranes. This was quite a limitation, as the heavy structure meant the new crane design would only be suitable for placement on brand new, very strong, and therefore expensive quay walls. Designing a way for the elevated crane modules to travel past the support pillars was one of many critical features of the design, and a lot of ways which don’t work were discovered on the way to finding optimum designs that will work. By mid-2008, the crane project had been extensively developed, almost exclusively by internal resources, and it was showing a lot of promise. Considering the impact of perfecting the crane design, a project with significant funding was approved late in 2008 to enable further detailed development of the design, using industry leading crane and engineering consultants.  Of course, late 2008 was a time of great financial turmoil. The global financial crisis resulted in every activity in APM’s business coming under rigorous scrutiny, however the company was committed to driving innovation in the industry and that requires a long term focus – the management made the tough decision to stick with the crane development project in spite of the difficult financial situation. During the course of the project, Angelo led a team of engineering experts to further enhance the internally developed design, and prove that it would work, and that it could be built.  In total 5,500 internal man hours, and more than 16,000 external man hours were devoted to reducing the weight of the crane structure, verifying structural requirements, designing control systems, and carrying out commercial analyses. Over 500 engineering drawings were produced and are now held on file. Through clever design the weight of the structure was significantly reduced, to the point where the wharf loadings are now no higher than those imposed by conventional STS cranes. This development means that it is now feasible to retro?fit the new crane design onto any relatively modern container terminal wharf. Detailed computer simulations of terminal operations were carried out, to ensure that currently available yard handling and horizontal transport systems could cope with the vastly increased rate of production possible with the new crane system. Today the revolutionary development in STS crane design internally developed by APM Terminals has been patented in 44 countries. FastNet not only eliminates the productivity limitation imposed by the width of today’s container cranes it also eliminates the constraint by mounting the individual cranes on an elevated girder, supported by massive, movable pillars. The moveable pillars are controlled by a sophisticated management system, which will ensure that the individual cranes can always reach all of the bays on the ship.  Extensive computer simulations have shown that for call size
s of 3,000 moves or greater, FastNet can consistently double berth productivity from today’s average of around 130 moves per hour to more than 270 moves per hour. Simulations have also shown that FastNet can deliver berth productivity of 450 moves per hour. The concept is also scalable, whilst the support structures are obviously required from the first day of operation the designers established a process for adding cranes to the structure as needed in subsequent years. It will also generate the greatest overall supply chain benefits when implemented in import/export terminals having frequent, high volume ship exchanges. Clarke also claims that by implementing the concept at terminals where services calling have long sea voyages before or after the FastNet call maximises the opportunity to reduce ships service speed’s, thus creating opportunities to lower costs and reduce CO2 emissions.

At a glance – WPD talks to Ross Clarke, Director – New Terminals Design & Operations, APM Terminals, about a new crane concept that could reap substantial rewards.

 – What are the estimated costs of the concept?

We have developed quite detailed estimates of the costs of the crane, and its associated automated yard and equipment, however we are not able to share that information.

– Has the company made any calculations on cost of the crane and productivity compared to a traditional system and if so are there any savings to be made?

Indeed, we have carried out extensive computer simulations of the crane to verify the levels of productivity which can be achieved. The computer simulations also verified that currently available automated yard systems are capable of keeping up with the high levels of production which can be achieved by the crane. Detailed commercial analyses were also carried out to determine the value created for shipping lines as a result of the substantially reduced port times made possible by Fastnet.

– What would be the weight of the new system and will it require special measures related to the quay wall to support this weight?

The wheel loads imposed by the crane are not significantly higher than the wheel loads of conventional STS cranes, making Fastnet feasible for retro-fit implementation in existing terminals having relatively modern quay wall constructions. We are unable to share the exact weight of the system.

– Are there any plans for APM Terminals to execute the concept? If not, when do you expect the company will do this and where?

We do not currently have plans to implement Fastnet at any specific location. Implementation location and time-frame will be determined largely by customer demand.

– Is APM Terminals talking to crane manufacturers?

We are not currently in discussions with any crane vendors with regard to Fastnet.