Massive Cranes Arrive at PNC

Pusan Newport Co, Ltd. (“PNC”), Korea’s new Mega Hub container terminal, has taken its first delivery of Ship-to-Shore cranes.

The vessel from ZPMC located in China arrived on Sunday, carrying the first three of the massive cranes. Pusan Newport has ordered a total of 26 cranes from ZPMC. Nine cranes will arrive prior to the scheduled facility opening for January 2006. The remaining cranes will continue arriving throughout the development of the facility.

The cranes are designed with a rail gauge of 42.7 meters which allows ample space for 9 lanes of truck traffic. Past generation cranes have been designed for only 30 meter rail gauge. These new generation cranes are built to eliminate production hampering congestion while operating on large container vessels with multiple cranes. The expanded rail gauge provides improved stability for these large cranes which handle future vessels of 22 containers wide. The cranes have a lifting capacity of 65 LT under the twin lift spreader.

Robert Walker, Vice President of Pusan Newport Co., and DPI Terminals, Korea commented: “The arrival of the first cranes in any green-site facility is a milestone event. We are especially proud to be taking possession of these new generation cranes which are built for productivity. This is a demonstration of DPI’s commitment to invest fully in this project and to deliver the highest levels of customer service when operations commence in 2006.”

PNC is scheduled for opening in January of 2006 with the first three container berths of 350m each. The second three berths will be operational in 2007 and an additional three berths in mid-2009. The overall terminal has a conservative estimated handling capacity of 5.5 million TEU. The terminal will be equipped for handling the next generation of large container vessels with water depths between 16 and 17 meters.