Port of Cork enjoys its new Liebherr cranes

Henry Kingston, Engineering Manager at the Port of Cork, said, “Liebherr Container Cranes in Killarney have been working with the Port of Cork for more than 50 years. Our first-hand experience of the top quality of Liebherr products and the first class after-sales service back were key factors influencing the decision to choose Liebherr for this project.”

Port of Cork says CCT will soon become a major enabler of growth for Cork City and Munster as well as the national economy. The funding for this development has come from Allied Irish Banks plc (AIB), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISFI), European Connecting Europe Facility Funds as well as self-finance, and these STS cranes will be core contributors to CCT’s growth in the 2020s and beyond.

The cranes were built less than 100 kilometres from Cork in Killarney, County Kerry, and are being assembled by local crane erection specialists William O’Brien Group., under the supervision of expert Liebherr engineers. Liebherr Container Cranes Ltd. is part of the Liebherr group and supplies container handling equipment to ports and rail terminals worldwide.

David Griffin Managing Director – Sales, Liebherr Container Cranes, said, “These new cranes are fitted with the latest energy saving Liebherr Liduro drives, power management systems and safety features available in today’s STS crane markets. The cranes will have an outreach of 45m, a back reach of 15m and a lift height over rail of 32m, ensuring that they will have the lift and reach capacity to cater for the largest container vessels which will visit Cork in the coming decades.”

The contract was awarded to Liebherr in 2018 after a public tender process, and the opening of CCT later this year will deliver the specific container service available to local businesses as well as Ireland’s international exporters.

Construction on CCT began in June 2019 and will finish in 2020. The US$87m project will initially offer a 360-metre-long quay with a 13-metre depth alongside. The development also includes the construction of a 13.5-hectare terminal and associated buildings.

Cork is the second largest port in Southern Ireland in terms of turnover. In 2019 the Port of Cork handled total container traffic of 240,000TEU. Thanks in part to the new Liebherr STS cranes, this is expected to increase by more than 37% to approximately 330,000TEU over the next decade according to estimates from the Cork Container Terminal.