Northport (Malaysia) Bhd, the second of three port operators at Port Klang, Malaysia, has expanded its operations with the recent arrival of four new quay cranes, bringing the total crane fleet for quay-side operations to 32 units.
With the new cranes, to be fully operational next month, the company expects to be able to handle about 3.4 million twenty-foot-equivalent units in 2014, from about 3 million TEUs expected this year, according to Malaysia’s national news agency Bernama.
During the launch, Northport also announced that the newly built Wharf 8 will be commissioned for commercial use next month.
“The four new cranes are part of six cranes purchased earlier, of which two cranes were received early this year,” said Northport CEO Abi Sofian Abdul Hamid during the launch.
The cranes are equipped with a state-of-the-art protection device to ensure their safe operation.
The new multipurpose wharf can berth ultra-large container vessels and will inject an additional capacity of 600,000 TEUs to Northport’s current container handling capacity of 5 million TEUs.
