On August 24, 2023, the Port of Savannah in the USA took delivery of four all-electric Super Post-Panamax ship-to-shore cranes, designed by Konecranes of Finland. The port’s crane fleet now stands at 34 at Garden City Terminal.
Once installed, two of the new cranes will measure 90m with a 22 container-wide reach; the other two 93m cranes have a 24 container-wide reach. The larger pair of cranes were offloaded at Berth 1 at Garden City Terminal; the others are set to be installed at Berth 9.
The port took delivery of four cranes in February 2023, which were installed at Berth 1, enabling the site to serve vessels with capacity to carry 16,000+, 6m equivalent container units. The cranes now enable the Garden City Terminal berth to deal with 1.5 million TEUs of annual capacity.
The all-electric cranes were delivered by the vessel BigLift Barentsz, and form part of a US$1.9bn infrastructure improvement plan set out by the Georgia Port Authority to ensure it can meet future supply chain requirements.
“Along with the completion of our project to improve Berth 1, these cranes will help deliver faster turn times to our ocean carrier customers, including the largest vessels calling on the US East Coast,” said Griff Lynch, president and CEO of the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA). “No other terminal in the nation can bring more cranes to bear, or match the efficiency, productivity and global connectivity of the Port of Savannah.”
“The ratio of GPA’s economic impact equates to roughly one job per nine TEUs moved,” added Stacy Watson, director of economic and industrial development at the GPA. “By expanding our annual capacity by three million TEUs over the next three years, GPA is also increasing its job-supporting capability by more than 300,000 jobs for Georgians.”
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