APM Terminals has signed a contract for the enlargement of 10 STS cranes, including the raising of the overall height, and extension of the crane boom, to accommodate container ships of up to 20,000 TEU capacity, the company said in its press release. After the modifications designed by the original crane manufacturer, Terex-Noell, the 10 STS cranes will become the tallest in the USA.
When the Benjamin Franklin arrived at Los Angeles in the last week of December 2015, containers were stacked seven levels-high on-deck, reducing the effective vessel capacity to 15,000 TEUs during that call. While docked at APM Terminals Pier 400 between the morning of Saturday, December 26th and the evening of Tuesday, December 29th approximately 1,500 longshoremen worked 56 hours to load and unload 11,229 containers (both 20’ and 40’), while employing a record nine STS cranes on the vessel at the same time. The previous record for the largest vessel to call the terminal prior to the Benjamin Franklin was the 15,000 TEU Maersk Edmondo, arriving only four days prior.