With just a week to go before the Grand Inauguration of its flagship Khalifa Port on December 12th, Abu Dhabi Ports Company has announced orders for three more of the largest cranes in the world, Dredging Today reports. ADPC has placed fresh orders with the ZPMC yard in Shanghai, China, for three new STS (ship to shore) cranes, among the largest in the world. The orders were placed on November 5th. and the three new cranes are scheduled to become operational at the Port on March 1st, 2014. They will join the six other ZPMC STS cranes currently serving the semi-automated state of the art container terminal at Khalifa Port. In addition, ADPC has ordered 12 new ASC (Automated Stacking Cranes) for the container yard from Konecranes, who supplied the current 30 ASC cranes onsite. The first six are scheduled to be delivered by January, 2014, and the remaining six, two months later.

Abu Dhabi Terminals (ADT) has completed the strategic redirection of container traffic from the confines of downtown Abu Dhabi to a spacious new terminal 60 kilometres east of the city centre. The move of the container trade from Mina Zayed, a long-established port that has served Abu Dhabi for over 40 years, to Khalifa Port, the region’s newest and only semi-automated terminal, was completed three months ahead of schedule and less than three months after the new port began commercial operations on September 1st, 2012. The last container vessel to call at Mina Zayed was the Jolly Arancione voy 290, a ship belonging to the Italy-headquartered Messina Line. The mixed-use ship can transport 1,800 TEUs, an industry term for twenty-foot-long containers, on its deck and dozens of wheeled vehicles in a seven-level multi-storey car park in its hull.

The redirection of containers from Abu Dhabi's older Mina Zayed port to the new Khalifa port began two months ahead of schedule supporting the city's growth and a move away from over-reliance on oil revenue, reports the New York Times. The port and adjacent Kizad industrial zone was built on an offshore artificial island in Taweelah, 60 kilometres east of Abu Dhabi and halfway to Dubai at a cost of US$7.2 billion to the state. The port's annual capacity is 2.5 million TEU, and with its second phase, this willdouble in three to five years against the city's older port of Mina Zayed with its 800,000 TEU capacity. The migration of containerships from Mina Zayed which will eventually become a hub for cruise liners supports the second largest city in the emirate's move to diversify away from oil into areas such as aluminum, glass and steel, said the port operator Abu Dhabi Ports CEO Tony Douglas.

In a milestone highlighting the intensive and full scale tests being carried out before the September 1st launch of Khalifa Port, the only semi-automated container terminal in the region, Abu Dhabi Ports Company ( ADPC ) and its port operator Abu Dhabi Terminals (ADT), have announced the historic arrival of the first-ever commercial container vessel to call at the port. The vessel, Ever Dynamic, from Evergreen Line with a total capacity of 4,173 TEUs (Twenty foot Equivalent container Units) sailed from Shanghai and arrived safely at Khalifa Port on July 18th. Senior representatives from ADPC , ADT, Evergreen Line as well as VIPs from government and private sectors welcomed the vessel as part of the ongoing full scale trials at Khalifa Port. www.zawya.com/sto...

Abu Dhabi Ports Company has announced the arrival of the first batch of Super Post Panamax 'Ship to Shore' (STS) container cranes at Khalifa Port. This marks a significant milestone for Khalifa Port as it readies for Phase 1 completion at the same time as the opening of Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi (Kizad) in the fourth quarter of this year.

The first batch of the world’s largest ship to shore cranes have set sail from Shanghai, China on their way to Khalifa Port. The super post panamax cranes built by Chinese company ZPMC are due to arrive at the end of January. ADPC announced an AED 193 million contract for six cranes with Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Co. Ltd (ZPMC) at the World Ports and Trade Summit in 2011. The cranes are designed with a single hoist and a rated load of 110 tonnes that will support tandem lift (2 x 40’) operations in the future. An outreach of 65 metres and a lifting height of 44 metres under the spreader will secure the capacity required to handle Ultra Large Container Ships. worldmaritimenews...

Abu Dhabi Ports Company has awarded ZPMC a AED193m (US$52.4m) contract for six super post-panamax ship-to-shore container cranes for Khalifa Port.