Work proceeding at new Liverpool terminal

   Peel Ports said work has begun on constructing the quay wall at the new Liverpool 2 Container Terminal.
   The terminal, being built at a cost of 300 million pounds ($480 million), will  provide a new 854-meter quay wall, at which two post-Panamax containerships of up to 13,500 TEUs will be able to dock.
   The port said this will allow it to handle large ships coming from Asia, the Middle East and Americas, and will serve a population of 35 million people living within a radius of 150 miles of the port in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
   The port said more than 320 40-meter-long steel piles, weighing 47 tons each, are now being driven into the bed of the River Mersey to form one of the highest quay walls in Europe, at 30 meters.
   Douglas Coleman, program director for Peel Ports, said “the scale of the works which are now underway highlight the speed with which the Liverpool 2 development is progressing. We are working to create a port which will offer a real alternative for deep-sea ships, which will be able to call at a world-class port in the center of the U.K. from 2015.”
   Last month, it was announced that a joint venture of BAM Nuttall (Surrey, U.K.) and Van Oord (Rotterdam) had been awarded a 75-million-pound contract by Peel Ports, the owner of Liverpool2, to design and build the new quay wall, carry out infill work and install crane rails. BAM Nuttall will design and construct the structure and install rails capable of carrying eight ship-to-shore cranes and 27 automated cantilevered rail-mounted gantry cranes.