Scotland’s largest port to expand container terminal
The Port of Grangemouth, Scotland’s largest container facility, is underway with a major resurfacing development as part of its continual multimillion pound investment which will further increase the capacity of the busy terminal and position the port ahead of the market, the company said in its press release.
This investment of £1million will upgrade the container terminal’s surfacing to increase the quality, capacity and the speed of servicing vessels with further significant investment planned for 2018. The work is being carried out by Luddon Construction and will be finished in October in time for the peak volume period. The new resurfaced area is expected to add in the region of 1,000 TEU of additional capacity.
Grangemouth is Scotland’s largest container port, with an overall capacity of 220,000 containers per annum. More than £6 billion worth of goods pass through the port each year including steel plate, timber, paper and equipment for the oil and gas industry.
The port has also placed an order with Liebherr for a new multimillion pound ship to shore container crane and is developing a new IT Terminal operating system both of which are due in service in 2018. This resurfacing work will ensure that the landside operation supports the investment in the crane and Terminal operating system which will deliver faster terminal performance.
Also included in the ongoing investment programme at Grangemouth, the port welcomed three new ESC340 straddle carriers earlier this year increasing the fleet at the container terminal to 16. The port also added a new Hyster empty container handler to the fleet this year. The new straddles, empty container handler and the new Liebherr crane will increase the handling capacity for both conventional containers and reefers (refrigerated containers).