Kalmar Nelcon has taken an order for two ship-to-shore container cranes for Eurogate’s Container Terminal Hamburg, with an option for a third crane.
Eurogate already has four Nelcon cranes at CTH, with the newest delivered in June 2003. To cope with the increasing size of vessels calling Hamburg, the two new cranes will have a 35m hoisting height instead of the 32m of the earlier cranes. They will be supplied with a full AC electrical installation from Alstom.
Continuous growth at Eurogate ‘s terminals has created this requirement for two additional cranes for the Hamburg operation. CTH presently handles 1.8 million TEU per annum using 2,100m of quay. It can accommodate any fully laden vessels which we see in service today.
Eurogate purchasing director Andree Ponty explained why the order went to Kalmar: “Kalmar reacted well to the development in prices for ship to shore container cranes and has succeeded in staying competitive. Consequently it was able to deal with our short-term demand for two additional ship-to-shore container cranes for our Hamburg operation. However, at Eurogate, we also attach a great deal of importance to the expected cost of ownership (e.g. lifetime maintenance costs and energy consumption) as well as reliability and productivity. In addition, in this particular case, a very short delivery time was of the utmost importance as was the cranebuilder’s reputation to deliver on time.
“We are very satisfied with the performance of the four existing Kalmar Nelcon cranes. They are presently performing an average of 120,000 moves per year each, thus helping us day by day in providing efficient and reliable services to our customers.” Kalmar is now bidding for a group tender that Eurogate has since issued, for 26 ship-to-shore cranes to be delivered over the next four years to its terminals in Hamburg, Bremerhaven and Gioia Tauro.
