As part of its substantial investment programme in improving the infrastructure to operate the increasing number of ULCC ship calls deployed by valued customers, LSCT has now completed the latest stage in positioning its newly revamped gantry crane on to the berth for final commissioning.
This took place on Thursday March 12 and was completed in 2.5 hours, without significantly impacting ship operations, quay crane number 11 was carefully maneuvered onto Fornelli East quay , where a 14,000 TEUs ship was close by under normal operation. Final testing and commissioning will be concluded within the month of March with the thoroughly modernized gantry crane then taking part in a larger “crane dance movement” including the transfer of cranes from East to West and vice versa.
LSCT, together with its partner, OMG MGM has now performed the engineering feat of successfully upgrading a total of 10 gantry cranes in recent years, with one further transformation planned.
Paolo Mussi, LSCT technical manager, recently returned from China after coordinating the dispatch of new cranes also to be involved in the latest “crane dance” event to be held shortly, comments “…It has been a very busy period for the technical team, performing a vital role of finite planning during live operations. Even if we have previous experience of engineering work in upgrading existing cranes and moving them into position without inconveniencing the service to the customer, this time there is the additional challenge of performing this arrangement at a time when there is a strong volume demand, for both containers and berth space. We last did this in August 2012 since which time the number of ULCC ship calls at the terminal has increased. The overall crane dance performance, which started yesterday, involves the positioning of the revamped 20 row crane onto the berth, next week the final 16 row crane will be removed from West and placed in the area assigned to perform the same upgrading work, shortly followed by the arrival of the specialist ship TERN, carrying the new 2 x 23 row cranes, and then at the very end of the month a 20 row crane will be transferred from East to West. …”
