#Ports&Shipping - The arrival from Cork Harbour of two state-of-the-art cranes worth £10.5 million to a UK North Sea port will double the volume of trade handled at ABP's Hull container terminal.

The increase in capacity is according to Associated British Ports expected to reach more than 400,000 units per year.

The giant 600 tonne and 50 metre high ship-to-shore gantry cranes made an impressive entrance as they arrived yesterday on board heavy lift vessel HHL Lagos.

The fully assembled gantry cranes as Afloat reported earlier this month had been loaded on the Hansa Heavy Lift ship at Cork Dockyard. Loading operations took around a week to complete before the 168m vessel sailed to the North Sea port on the Humber Estuary which was accessed through the lock gates.

The new cranes are part of a recent £15 million investment which also includes the purchase of equipment such as reach stackers and tug trailers. In addition to the creation of 9,000 square metres of new storage for customers.

ABP has committed to invest a total of £50 million in its container terminals on the Humber - located in Immingham and Hull - in response to continued growth in demand.

ABP Humber Director, Simon Bird, said: “This major investment underlines our confidence in the future as growth in our container business looks set to continue in the years ahead.
“Across the Humber our container terminals have seen a 41% growth in volumes since 2013. Our ambition is to build on this success by continuing to deliver state-of-the-art equipment and first class infrastructure to benefit our customers and the wider economy.”

The Liebherr cranes are bespoke made and took around 11 months to build in Ireland. The HHL Lagos took three days to sail to the Hull where the ship's on board heavy lift crane were used to carefully place the new cranes on the quayside crane rails. The cranes will be fully operational by the beginning of April 2018.

Hull’s 10 acre container terminal is the third largest short sea container port on the east coast. During August 2017, 10 new employees were taken on in preparation for the increased demand of the 24-hour operation.

In addition to Hull, ABP also operate ports on the Humber at Grimsby, Goole and Immingham. The four ports handle around 13% of all of the UK’s seaborne trade. Every year the ports handle £75 billion worth of trade, more than the Mersey, Tyne and Tees combined.