APMT to raise Los Angeles cranes to handle mega-ships

APM Terminals plans to retrofit at least five cranes at its Pier 400
terminal at Los Angeles to make them capable of handling fully laden mega-ships of up to 20,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units.

The 18,000-TEU CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin, which called Pier 400 in late December, is the largest ship U.S. ports have handled. … However, the CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin could not be loaded to capacity, because the 133-foot-high booms of Pier 400’s 14 ship-to-shore cranes could not handle boxes stacked more than seven tiers above the ship’s deck.

The retrofitting will allow the cranes’ booms to reach boxes stacked 10 high on deck, and to span at least 23 rows of containers.

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