ATLANTA – Four new ship-to-shore cranes capable of servicing the largest containerized-cargo ships have arrived at the Port of Savannah, the Georgia Ports Authority announced Friday.
The new cranes, which arrived on Thursday, will increase the crane fleet at the port’s Garden City Terminal to 34 after four older cranes were retired and recycled.
“Along with the completion of our project to improve Berth 1, these cranes will help deliver faster turn times to our ocean carrier customers, including the largest vessels calling on the U.S. East Coast,” said Griff Lynch, the ports authority’s president and CEO.
“No other terminal in the nation can bring more cranes to bear or match the efficiency, productivity, and global connectivity of the Port of Savannah.”
Two of the cranes will be 295 feet tall when fully assembled, while the other two will be 306 feet tall. The taller cranes will be offloaded at Berth 1 of the Garden City Terminal, while the other two are headed up the Savannah River to Berth 9.
The new cranes coupled with improvements to Berth 1 will increase the Garden City Terminal’s annual capacity by 1.5 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containerized cargo.
The new equipment is part of the ports authority’s $1.9 billion infrastructure improvement plan aimed at keeping up with future supply chain needs.