Two more quayside gantry cranes, also known as ship-to-shore cranes, are going to be added to the existing ones at the Chattogram port by this week to enhance the port's efficiency in handling containers to and from vessels.   

A Chinese flagged vessel, Xin Chen Hai Yang, from Shanghai carrying the two quayside gantry cranes and three rubber-tyred gantry cranes arrived at the outer anchorage on Saturday, said Secretary to Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) Md Omar Faruk.

It is scheduled to berth at the jetty number 5 of New Mooring Container Terminal today, he added.

This consignment is a part of the 104 different types of equipment the CPA is procuring under a project involving Tk 914 crore initiated in 2020 to speed up import and export activities at the country's main seaport.

Under the project, the CPA has purchased four quayside gantry cranes, the most necessary and effective container handling equipment, from Chinese company Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company at a cost of Tk 244 crore for New Mooring Container Terminal.

A previous consignment of two quayside gantry cranes and three rubber-tyred gantry cranes arrived earlier in May this year.

With these four, the number of quayside gantry cranes at the port has now reached 18.

In 2005, the port for the first time got four gantry cranes which were installed for handling containers at two jetties of Chittagong Container Terminal.

No new gantry cranes could be procured till 2017, forcing the port to handle containers at the rest of the jetties with the help of the respective ship's crane.

Port users, including the business communities, had long been demanding purchasing more quayside gantry cranes, particularly since the New Mooring Container Terminal was constructed in 2007 for boosting up container handling capacity.

The CPA purchased six quayside gantry cranes in 2018 and in the following year it procured four more from the same Chinese company at a cost of Tk 344.92 crore and Tk 238.63 crore respectively.

Those 10 quayside gantry cranes and the two arriving in May this year have been installed at the five jetties of New Mooring Container Terminal while the two freshly arrived quayside gantry cranes will also be installed at New Mooring Container Terminal, said the CPA secretary.

Inclusion of the new gantry cranes will significantly reduce the stay time of ships at the port jetties, he said.

With the latest two quayside gantry cranes, four jetties of New Mooring Container Terminal that accommodate bigger vessels will now be equipped with a total of 12 quayside gantry cranes.

Meanwhile each of the four jetties will have three quayside gantry cranes.

The rest of the New Mooring Container Terminal jetty which is dedicated for Pangaon Inland Container Depot-bound vessels will have two quayside gantry cranes.

Tanveer Hussain, chief operating officer of Saif Powertec, the private berth operator that operates New Mooring Container Terminal, said container handling at New Mooring Container Terminal would be quicker.

They would now be able to complete unloading and loading of import and export containers of bigger-sized vessels at the New Mooring Container Terminal jetties within 48 hours while it now takes 72 hours to do the job, he said.

"With three quayside gantry cranes working at a time on a bigger vessel, the import laden containers can be unloaded within 13 hours to 15 hours which is now taking 18 hours to 19 hours," said Tanveer.

CPA Chief Engineer Aminul Islam said so far 16 equipment have been procured out of the total 104 under the equipment procurement project.

Under the project, the CPA planned to buy four quayside gantry cranes, 11 rubber-tyred gantry cranes, 27 straddle careers, FOUR reach stackers, two mobile cranes of 100 tonne capacity each and others.