Port of Philadelphia Delivered Its First Super Post-Panamax Cranes

Photo: Port of Philadelphia

The first two super post-Panamax cranes for the Port of Philadelphia arrived at the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal on Saturday after a ninety-day journey from Shanghai, China.

The two cranes were manufactured by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries and transported aboard the heavy lift vessel Zhen Hua 16.

At 391 feet tall, the cranes are large enough to load and unload the newest generation of ultra-large containerships which can carry between 10,000 and 18,000 twenty-foot containers each, making them big enough to handle largest ships arriving via the Expanded Panama Canal.

So far, the largest containership to call at the Port of Philadelphia was the 12,200 TEU vessel MSC Shuba B, arriving from the West Coast of South America.

In April 2019, the Port of Philadelphia will be delivered two more identical cranes. At $12 million a piece, the cranes were purchased by PhilaPort port authority along with Packer Avenue Marine Terminal’s operator, Astro Holdings, as part of Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf’s $300 million Port Development Plan to increase cargo-handling capacity and efficiency at the U.S. East Coast port.

In 2017, the Port of Philadelphia containerized cargo volumes grew by 19% to a total of 548,000 TEU.

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