A container crane supplied by German manufacturer Kranservice Rheinberg is the central feature of the new Oosterhout container terminal which opened in the Netherlands in August.
Located on the Wilhelmina canal, Oosterhout container terminal will be included in a shipping line with services between a number of river ports and seaports. Some 30,000 TEU are expected to be handled each year, mostly for the Swedish furniture retailer Ikea.
The crane at Oosterhout is one of four new container cranes for different container terminals run by the Dutch investment company Van de Lande. The other three are due to start operation at Wansum, another Dutch terminal, and at Voerde-Emmelsum in Germany this year or early 2002.
The crane has a lattice girder design, making it possible to have long cantilevers and spans and offer a reduced area for the wind to act upon while giving appropriate stiffness in bending and torsion.
Comparatively low overall weights, lower wheel loads and low driving power mean that savings can be made in the investment costs for the foundations and in the operating costs. The Oosterhout crane has a total weight of approximately 200t, a span of 44m, a waterside cantilever of 14m and a landside cantilever of 4m. It has a capacity of 50t at the ropes and can lift one over five containers high.
Equipped with a spreader with a slewing unit and optimum working speeds – 30/60m/min lifting speed, 60m/min crane travel speed and 80m/min trolley speed – it is designed to load and unload containers over the quayside.
According to Kranservice Rheinberg, the four cranes supplied to Van de Lande are ideal for smaller and medium-sized privately run container terminals in river ports because being more compact they have a lower initial cost and lower maintenance costs than larger cranes, and yet are versatile in application.
Kranservice Rheinberg has delivered more than 3,000 cranes over the past 50 years. It was acquired by Mannesmann Dematic in 1996. Its 2000 turnover was about DM90m ($43m).
