CHILE: San Antonio Internacional S.A. (STI) has announced that four new cranes have arrived at the terminal as part of its US$105m expansion plan.
The four units, which include two ZPMC super post-Panamax ship-to-shore (STS) cranes and two rubber-tyred gantry cranes (RTGs) will be added to the existing six STS cranes and two RTGs at the terminal.
The two STS cranes, which are capable of handling new Panamax vessels with 22 container rows on deck and nine containers high over deck, are part of the expansion plan expected to increase the terminal’s capacity to 1.6m teu by mid-2017.
The project, which includes the addition of 130 m of new berth and dredging to a depth of 15 m at all the terminal’s berths, will allow it to handle four vessels operating simultaneously.
Jose Iribarren, STI’s general manager, said: “These new cranes represent our commitment to Chile where we will, when the above mentioned expansion project is completed, have invested close to US$240m.”
This also shows our commitment to our customers, who are eagerly waiting for the completion of the Panama Canal expansion to deploy new-Panamax vessels in the region,” he continued.
STI claimed that the two new cranes, which were fully assembled in China, were the biggest container cranes ever received in Chile.
The terminal is a subsidiary of US-based container terminal operator SSA Marine and Sudamericana Agencias Aéreas y Marítimas (SAAM).
San Antonio, which is Chile’s leading container port, ranked 107th in the 2015 issue of CM’s World Top Container Ports, having handled 1.1m teu in 2014.
