Australia: Fremantle Port Modernization Underway

The Zhen Hua 21 was an impressive sight as it entered Fremantle Port’s Inner Harbour two days ago to deliver a new container crane to Asciano’s Patrick Terminal at North Quay.

The mega-sized delivery was one of four cranes on board the ship, which has made the long journey from China.

Once the crane for Fremantle has been transferred to the berth, the ship will continue on to deliver the other three cranes to Patrick’s container shipping terminals in Brisbane and Melbourne.

The cranes, manufactured by ZPMC of Shanghai, are used to load and unload containers from large container ships. They are 104.5m high and 31m wide, with an outreach of 50m and a backreach of 18m. Once operational, they will provide world-class crane operation, improving capacity at three Patrick terminals across Australia.

Asciano’s new crane at Fremantle Port will go through a detailed acceptance and commissioning process before a formal handover to the operations crew. It will begin initial operations by late June 2013, with full operations to follow successful testing.

Patrick Terminals and Logistics Director Alistair Field said: “The arrival of these state-of-the-art cranes will enable us to provide further improvements in our service delivery to all our customers around Australia.”

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Press Release, May 17, 2013