The LHM550C cranes are among a fleet of six ordered from Liebherr Werk Nenzing in Austria. They arrived on board the MV Trina vessel. Two more cranes are scheduled to arrive in June with the remaining two cranes arriving in November.

The Durban RORO and Maydon Wharf Terminal handles predominantly break-bulk and RORO* cargo, but has been earmarked to handle some of the 400 000 TEUs of container traffic diverted from Durban Container Terminal (DCT): Pier 2 per annum. This is while berths on DCT: Pier 2’s North Quay undergo deepening and refurbishment over the next 74 months.

The new mobile harbour cranes are among the most flexible container handling solutions. They boast a lifting capacity of 140 tonnes and will enable faster, safer and more space-efficient transportation of containers, as well as improved productivity and container throughput at the terminal. They will be the first to enable TPT to handle 18 container rows across deck through a 54 metre boom. They will also allow TPT to test Liebherr’s new hybrid technology known as Pactronic, which improves load lifting, lowers speeds, and reduces both fuel consumption and gas emissions by 30 percent.

Equipment and maintenance is one aspect of TPT’s six-point plan to handle increased container cargo at Durban RORO and Maydon Wharf Terminal – the other focus points being: human resources, information technology, infrastructure, stakeholder engagement and change management, and planning. Such infrastructure upgrades are also aligned to the Transnet Market Demand Strategy, which will aggressively fast-track capital investment over the next seven years to modernise logistics infrastructure, lower the cost of doing business, improve supply chain efficiencies, create jobs and pursue long term economic growth. 

Other equipment on order to boost container handling at Durban RORO and Maydon Wharf Terminal includes reach stackers, haulers and trailers.

The decision, coming only a few months after DHB received formal Government approval for its second ferry terminal (Terminal 2), is another significant vote of confidence in the strategic direction of the UK’s busiest trust port and its management team.

Bob Goldfield, Chief Executive, Port of Dover said: “We have always believed that we have a very strong case for the tariff levels that we charge and that they are always set with due regard to the policy guidance given by Government.”  Mr Goldfield went on to state: “Only a realistic tariff level can ensure that we can meet our many obligations to all of our stakeholder groupings, including our ferry operators.”

It is DHB’s role to ensure that the Port of Dover is operated on a sound financial basis that ensures the future of the port as a going concern for the benefit of all customers and stakeholders, including the local community.  The ferry operators are a vitally important part of the Port’s immediate and long-term future and today’s announcement will enable the Port’s Board and management to develop a new and stronger understanding with the ferry operators.  DHB expects to hold a number of meetings with the operators in the coming weeks to chart an agreed understanding and a way forward for future tariff negotiations.

“The Colonel’s Island terminal at the Port of Brunswick handled the majority of this roll-on/roll-off cargo, with 59,926 units,” said GPA Executive Director Curtis Foltz. “Georgia’s deepwater ports are perfectly positioned to take advantage of the growing export market for vehicles and heavy equipment produced in Georgia and around the Southeast.”

The Colonel’s Island Terminal volume increased 57.7 percent over April 2011, or 21,916 additional units. For the fiscal year to date, Brunswick has handled 448,118 units, a 17.5 percent increase over FY11 to date, or 66,603 additional units.

In anticipation of increased heavy machinery exports, the GPA board in March approved $2.8 million in structural upgrades at Colonel’s Island for roads, bridges, staging areas and rail loading/offloading areas. The Brunswick facility is the nation’s fifth busiest port for total import-export of Ro/Ro cargo, and the third busiest port for the export of U.S.-made vehicles and machinery.

“The GPA’s strong performance in a number of commodities, along with a continued dominant market share in the Southeast for containerized cargo, highlights the flexibility of our ports to serve a broad range of shipping customers,” said Board Chairman Alec Poitevint.

Across all terminals, the ports handled 2.3 million tons in April, the fourth highest volume on record, and less than 75,000 tons from the all-time high set in March.

Ocean Terminal handled 132,441 tons of break bulk cargo in April, up 18.8 percent or 20,981 tons from the same month in the previous year. For the fiscal year to date, the terminal handled 1.06 million tons of break bulk cargo, up 19 percent over FY2011 through April.

At the board meeting, Foltz reviewed March and April container volumes moved through the Port of Savannah. During the month of March, the Port of Savannah handled 259,795 twenty-foot equivalent container units (TEUs), a 9 percent increase over March 2011, or an additional 21,782 units. In April, 248,886 TEUs moved across GPA’s docks, a 4.2 percent decrease from April 2011, but still 11,810 units more than February’s volume. “The modest container volume growth for the year is reflective of a very fragile U.S. economic recovery and ongoing consumer uncertainty for the balance of 2012,” said Foltz.  

In other business, the board:
·        Approved a resolution in support of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recommendation to deepen the Savannah Harbor to 47 feet to accommodate post-Panamax container vessels.
·        Approved a resolution requesting the issuance of $60 million in general obligation bonds to cover mitigation engineering, design and construction costs associated with the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project (SHEP). The state has approved the issuance of up to $181 million in such bonds to fund SHEP.

“During a Hyster factory tour in Nijmegen (The Netherlands), the benefits of the new Tier 4i engines used in the new Hyster ReachStackers were clear” explains Mr. De Witte, Terminal Manager at Barge Center Waalhaven in Rotterdam.

In October 2011, a new Hyster RS 45-31CH ReachStacker was delivered to the container terminal in Rotterdam and is used to load and unload containers from trucks, stack and handle containers ready for loading the ships.

The new Tier 4i / Stage IIIB compliant Hyster ReachStackers deliver similar performance levels as the previous models, but with much lower fuel consumption, saving significant costs on an annual basis. The measured savings by Waalhaven were 4 litres per hour less than other reachstackers running in the same application. The financial savings can be calculated by taking into account the current fuel prices.

Chris van der Werdt, Sales Manager for Hyster Big Trucks, explains “Once delivered, we proved to Waalhaven that our claims of significant and sustained fuel cost reductions are achievable in tough and demanding terminal applications.”

Barge Terminal Born, another operation in the Waalhaven Group, subsequently ordered an additional Hyster RS 45-31CH ReachStacker which can lift and put away containers from 45,000kg in the first row, 31,000kg in the second row and 16,000kg in the third.  Additionally, they ordered the new 2 over 4 9’6″ high Hyster empty container handler which also features similar fuel saving benefits. The new machines will both be used at the Barge and Rail Terminal in Born, in the south of the Netherlands, which provides multimodal transport for continental, deep-sea and short-sea containers.

Hyster has achieved low emissions and reduced fuel consumption in these container handlers by integrating the new Cummins QSL9 diesel engine with Hyster technologies.  Combining cooled Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) with an improved High Pressure Common Rail (HPCR) fuel system enables cleaner and more efficient combustion, and effectively controls NOx emissions.  It also features cooling on demand, load sensing hydraulics, RPM management and alternate engine idle speed, to help further reduce the total fuel consumption in all applications.

The comfortable ‘Vista’ cab slides over the entire length of the ReachStacker for optimum visibility when handling containers and there is a container weight display which also shows distance and height. The Hyster ReachStacker is also proven to be the quietest in its class and, according to the company, transcends all the performance levels of the competition. 

The Hyster empty container handler also features the ‘Vista’ cab, which is rear-mounted to provide optimum visibility for the drivers to support stacking up to 8 high with class leading lifting speeds.

The service support response time and excellent maintenance provided by the local Hyster distribution partner, Barloworld Intern Transport, were important factors in the purchase decision together with the performance of the machines. The preference of the drivers also played a major role.

Barge Center Waalhaven in Rotterdam is one of the three terminals of the Waalhaven Group and is used for handling ‘short-sea’ and barge containers. Strategically located between the city and the Delta, it has a capacity of 200,000TEUs and is a cost efficient terminal for handling large numbers of containers. Container ships with a maximum capacity of 1,200 TEUs and a depth of 9.5 meters can moor here. The terminal is part of the “Intermodal Transportation Concept” and therefore can offer services that other terminals often can’t.