New Cranes Arrive At Port Houston
The arrival of eight new 270-foot-tall super post-panamax cranes to Port Houston’s Bayport Container Terminal last month highlights $100 million in investments at the port.
Three of the cranes are neo-panamax ship-to-shore cranes, which stand nearly 30 stories tall and have a boom length of 211 feet. The cranes are able to load and unload vessels up to 22 containers wide. The five other cranes are rubber-tired gantry (RTG) cranes.
“The level of activity with the shipments of cranes [last] week is unprecedented,” said Executive Director Roger Guenther. “To see the visual display of both ship-to-shore and container yard cranes being delivered to our newly constructed Wharf No. 2 at Bayport in a matter of days is an amazing demonstration of our commitment to investment at work.”
Port Houston is the largest container port on the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, handling nearly 70 percent of all containers moving through the Gulf. Considerable strategic investment is being made by Port Houston in response to the steady growth it is experiencing.
The new cranes at Bayport and construction of Bayport Wharf No. 2 are a part of its program to increase capacity, cargo-handling efficiency and support the port’s infrastructure.
The ship-to-shore cranes cost about $35 million and the RTG cranes cost a little more than $2 million each. Construction of Bayport’s Wharf No. 2 is an estimated $35 million project. Bayport Container Terminal recently recorded the largest number of single-vessel container lifts in its history, with more than 4,800 lifts performed during one vessel operation.
Further demonstrating its commitment to strategic investment, the port commission of the Port of Houston Authority recently awarded a $49 million construction contract for Container Yard 7 at the Bayport Terminal. This new construction will add 50 additional acres of container yard storage area.
The three newest ship-to-shore cranes will bring the total number of ship-to-shore cranes to 26 working at Port Houston’s Bayport and Barbours Cut Container Terminals, 13 of which are super post-panamax. The delivery of the five new RTG cranes is part of an order of 10 cranes.
