APM Terminals Orders Cranes for MedPort Tangier

APM Terminals The Netherlands-based terminal operator APM Terminals has ordered new cranes to equip its five-million TEU APM Terminals MedPort Tangier facility under construction at Moroccos Tanger-Med II port complex. Under the contract, the terminal operator ordered a total of 12 remote-controlled Ship-to-Shore (STS) cranes and 32 Automated Rail-Mounted Gantry Cranes (ARMGs) for the new facility. The STS cranes, ordered from Shanghai-based ZPMC, are scheduled for delivery at the end of 2017 and feature full automation, including a remote crane operator safely located in an office building near the quay, a second trolley, and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. The 32 ARMGs, also expected for delivery in late 2017, will be provided by Austrian-based Künz and deployed in 16 container yard blocks, each serviced by two ARMGs. The container terminal will be the second operated by APM Terminals at the Tanger-Med port complex designed to serve the newest Ultra-Large Container Ships (ULCS) with capacities of up to 20,000 TEUs. APM Terminals MedPort Tangier will have up to 2,000 meters of quay length and increase the Tanger-Med complex’s overall capacity to over nine million TEUs. The facility complements APM Terminals Tangier which handled 1.7 million TEUs in 2015. Opening in 2019, the deep-water terminal will employ both conventional and fully-automated operations and a truck gate system.