BELFAST Harbour has made its largest ever investment in a single piece of port equipment with the installation of a new £6.6 million ship-to-shore container handling crane.
The new fully electric crane is part of a three-year £40m investment in the port’s Victoria Terminal 3 (VT3) container terminal.
Manufactured by Liebherr in Co Kerry, the crane was delivered to Belfast Harbour’s D1 site in Co Down in March. After a 12-week construction period it was moved across the Victoria Channel by barge to VT3 (in Co Antrim) in a complex 15-hour operation last weekend.
Weighing 765 tonnes, the crane can lift 40 containers, each weighing up to 40 tonnes, from a ship every hour and can operate in winds of up to 50 mph.
Port director Michael Robinson said the new crane will service the increasingly large container ships importing and exporting from Belfast.
“It is one of ten new cranes that are being installed, supporting Belfast Harbour’s SMART Port strategy to improve efficiency through new technology and further our ambition to be the best regional port in the world.”
As well as enhancing safety, he said the new crane will increase the container terminal capacity by 30 per cent.
Declan Freeman, managing director of Belfast Container Terminal Limited, operators of the VT3 terminal, said: “The new Liebherr ship-to-shore crane is a superb asset for the terminal and together with the investment in new automated rubber tyre gantry cranes, we are confident that operational efficiency and safety will be enhanced.”
