Suez Canal Container Terminal orders handling equipment

Suez Canal Container Terminal (SCCT) on Wednesday ordered eight super-post-Panamax ship-to-shore gantry cranes from China's ZPMC to be installed at the terminal Phase II facility in Port Said East, Egypt.

In addition to the cranes, SCCT also ordered 20 rubber-tired gantry cranes (RTGs) from ZPMC, with another 10 RTGs planned at a later stage.

SCCT opened in October 2004 and when fully complete will have a total of 24 super-post-Panamax STS gantry cranes. The first 300-meter berth of Phase II is expected to be in operation by April 2010 with completion scheduled for the end of 2011 at which time SCCT will have a capacity of 5.1 million TEUs and 2,400 meters continuous quay.

The equipment orders placed with ZPMC today are an investment in the future and a further step on the way for SCCT to become the largest and most efficient container terminal in the Mediterranean, said Jens Floe, managing director of SCCT.

The major shareholders in SCCT are APM Terminals (55 percent), COSCO Pacific (20 percent), Suez Canal Authority (10 percent), National Bank of Egypt (5 percent) and Egyptian private sector (10 percent).