Port of Salalah has taken delivery of three mobile harbour cranes to boost its general cargo handling capabilities. The new state-of-the-art Liebherr equipment will improve the productivity of its dry bulk and bagged operations significantly.
While the two cranes, one LHM600 and LHM180, are operational, the third one (LHM600) is expected to arrive by end of April 2022. These investments are part of its strategic initiatives to increase capacity and improve efficiencies to meet the market growth demands.
Each LHM600 is fitted with large grab to allow for a thousand tonnes per hour productivity. With an outreach of up to 58 metres, this equipment is the ideal handling solution for ships up to New-Panamax size thereby reducing the unit cost for exporters.
In 2021, the General Cargo Terminal of Port of Salalah handled 16.9 million tonnes of cargo, up from 15.8 million tonnes in 2020. The General Cargo throughput in Port of Salalah has been growing at a year-to-year growth of around 15 per cent since 2000.
Gypsum remains to be the most dominant dry bulk cargo handled. Oman’s gypsum export through Port of Salalah have also grown at a phenomenal pace, with volumes rising from 0.3 million tonnes in 2010 to around 9 million tonnes in 2021 corresponding to a 30-fold increase in just ten years. Further, the Sultanate of Oman is predicted to become the single most important gypsum source in Asia supplying 250Mt out of a total supply of 360Mt in the period 2016-2030, according to a recent study.
“Our current and ongoing investments demonstrate our long-term commitment to meet the growing market demands at the same time improving the competitiveness of Omani exports through efficient operations. The three new mobile harbour cranes coupled with our ability to handle bigger vessels will certainly make a significant difference in this direction”, said Mark Hardiman, CEO, Port of Salalah.
“We are extremely excited at the new addition to our equipment fleet which will help improve our operational efficiency and enhance our cargo handling capacity”, added Ahmed Qatan COO, General Cargo Terminal, Port of Salalah.
