CHATTOGRAM, Aug 15: The Chittagong Port is entering a new era with the procurement of three highly sophisticated quay gantry cranes.
The cranes reached the port on Tuesday night as the Chinese ship MV Xing Jin Cheng Hai Yang berthed at the port's Chittagong Container Terminal-2.
The prime seaport of the country now received the first consignment of shore-to-ship gantry cranes.
The port had so long been in dire need of shore-to-ship cranes, which was a long-drawn demand of the port users in the country.
Loading and unloading of containers in the traditional way of cargo handling took a long time earlier.
About 15-16 containers could be handled in an hour applying the old system earlier but now a shore-to-ship crane can handle 27 to 30 containers per hour.
"So the shipment of export containers and unloading of import containers at the port will be much speedier and the ships calling at the port will leave much earlier than now," the port chairman said.
This is the first consignment of six quay gantry cranes (QGC) procured for the prime seaport at a cost of Tk 3.45 billion.
The ship will unload the cranes on Thursday (tomorrow) and leave for China to bring the remaining three QGCs, expected to arrive in the port in October.
Chairman of Chittagong Port Authority Zulfiquer Aziz told the FE on Wednesday that they were very happy to receive the QGCs five days ahead of schedule because the vessel was scheduled to reach Chittagong Port on August 19.
He said that the port authority signed another contract for procuring four more cranes which would arrive in the port by May next year.
The CPA signed the contract to procure six shore-to-ship gantry cranes with China's Shanghai Zenhua Heavy Industries Co Ltd in October last year, the port chairman said.
A top official of the port authority said all six cranes would be installed at three jetties of the New Mooring Container Terminal, with two cranes at each jetty.
"These three cranes will take one month to assemble while the three others will arrive within two months," said Md Zafar Alam, Member (Admin and Planning) of the CPA Board.
The Chittagong Port has now 13 jetties for container handling with only four cranes in total. The cranes have been installed in the Chittagong Container Terminal's two jetties. These cranes were procured in 2005 at a cost of Tk 1.50 billion.
In 2017-18, the port handled 2.8 million TEUs (twenty foot equivalent unit) of containers against 2.5 million TEUs in the previous year.
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