EVERGREEN OPENS MEDITERRANEAN HUB IN TARANTO

EVERGREEN OPENS MEDITERRANEAN HUB IN TARANTO    The Evergreen group has opened a Mediterranean transshipment hub in Taranto, in the south of Italy.
   The Taranto Container Terminal, intended to operate as a common-user facility, has handled its first deepsea vessels, two 5,652-TEU vessels operated by Lloyd Triestino, an Evergreen group affiliate. Both ships are employed in Lloyd Triestino’s China-Europe-Mediterranean container service.
   The Taranto terminal, developed on an existing port facility intended for bulk ships, will initially provide 1,000 meters of berth, served by five post-Panamax ship-to-shore cranes and 12 rail-mounted container stacking cranes.
   “The berths offer a depth alongside of 14 meters, sufficient for the largest vessels currently operating,” a spokesman for Evergreen said.
   The second phase of development of the new container hub, due for completion in early 2002, will see the introduction of another 500 meters of quay, five more ship-to-shore cranes and 10 stacking cranes.
   Evergreen said that a final stage may be developed when demand warrants it, adding another 550 meters of    berth to complete the 2,050-meter facility. It will then be served by 18 ship-to-shore gantry cranes.
   Taranto Container Terminal is linked directly to the Italian rail network and block trains will be operated to and from industrial areas in northern Italy.
   Evergreen said that the terminal is “served by a comprehensive feeder network linking it to other Italian ports, the West and East Mediterranean, the Adriatic Sea and the Black Sea.”
   The Evergreen group owns 90 percent of the new Taranto facility, with its Italian liner agent Greensisam owning the remaining 10 percent.
   The commencement of a new Mediterranean container hub in Taranto follows the successful development of the Gioia Tauro, Malta, Algeciras and Damietta transshipment terminals in the last 10 years.