The two Liebherr mobile harbour cranes, LHM550, ordered by MPDC in the beginning of 2015 have already arrived at the Port of Maputo and are currently being assembled. It took around eight months for the cranes to be produced and adapted to the Port of Maputo’s operational needs and they have a lift capacity of 144 tons.
“The new mobile harbour cranes will have an enormous impact in the Port of Maputo’s operations. A ferro-chrome operation, for example, that in optimal conditions would load a handymax ship (40.000 tons) in three and a half days, will now allow to load the same ship in two and a half days, which means one day less. And if you talk solely on the gross tons per hour handled, we will be talking about an increase that can go up to 300%!,” explained the Operations Manager, Captain Alexandre Houane.
Equipped with the revolutionary technology Pactronic, an hybrid system that increases operational efficiency by energy accumulation, the two cranes can work in tandem only requiring one operator, thus being energy cost effective but also increasing the operational efficiency.
After assembling and initial tests, the cranes will immediately start operating. The operators for the cranes and the staff responsible for its maintenance have been in continuous training at Liebherr Africa’s offices, in Durban, now for several months.
