Port of New Orleans to buy gantry cranes

The port’s board of commissioners approved a $23.4 million contract to Shanghai Zenhua Heavy Industries for the two 100-foot cranes.

   The board of commissioners for the Port of New Orleans (Port NOLA) approved Thursday the purchase of two new 100-foot gauge container gantry cranes to be used at the Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal.
   The board approved the $23.5 million contract to Shanghai Zenhua Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. for the construction and delivery of the cranes, which have the ability to work ships stacked with containers more than 20 containers in width. The entire project — construction, transport and crane installation — is expected to take about 18 to 20 months from the contract approval, the port said Friday in a press release.
   The two new cranes will complement the existing two 100-foot gauge cranes currently in operation at the terminal. The additional cranes will also allow the 50-foot gauge gantry cranes in operation to be used for smaller vessels, the port said.
   Port NOLA is currently in the engineering and design phase of extending the 100-foot gauge rail tracks to accommodate the new cranes at the terminal.
   The port handled a port-record 591,253 TEUs in 2018, which was a 12.3 percent increase over 2017.