Last week Konecranes signed an agreement with Terport S.A. (Terminales Portuarias S.A.) in Paraguay, South America to deliver 2 BOXHUNTER Rubber Tired Gantry cranes (RTGs), as announced by Konecranes’. The equipment is to be delivered in early 2018. The parties have agreed not to disclose the value of the deal.
Terport S.A. is a multipurpose terminal located in San Antonio on the Paraguay river, 12 km south of the country’s capital Asunción. The terminal handles general, container and heavy lift cargo, providing a wide range of services to importers, exporters, feeders and line operators. The facility of 15 hectares area and 60m berth is a small (its throughput in 2014 was just 50,000 TEU) but fast developing private terminal. This will be the first terminal in Paraguay to operate RTG cranes.
“The BOXHUNTER RTG is an ideal match for the varied needs of this kind of multipurpose container terminal,” said Jussi Suhonen, Sales Director, Region Americas. “You need to be able to jump into the machine quickly, carry out a container move on the fly, jump out again and do something else. BOXHUNTER will allow Terport to handle more container traffic with more flexibility in the same space.”
BOXHUNTER is an innovative crane. With this Konecranes claim they have reinvented the RTG. Focusing on the operator’s convenience, the designers have brought the cabin down that traditionally is located at the top of the crane. The operator sits in an ergonomic heads-up position in a cabin with direct line-of-sight to the main truck loading and unloading action. This allows seeing all the container action down low, as well as climbing in and out of the cabin in seconds. At the same time, the operator has excellent visibility everywhere, thanks to the advanced video and laser technology of the BOXHUNTER operating concept. The crane is quick to learn and easy to drive, says the manufacturer.
The cranes on order will have a lifting capacity of 40.6 t and stack 1-over-5 containers high and 7 containers wide plus truck lane. They will be fully electric, driven by a cable reel system with fiber optics included. The auto-steering feature will be included, which allows the crane to be driven on a pre-programmed, straight path. TRUCONNECT® remote technical support is a standard part of the package.
It is also interesting to note that BOXHUNTERs are delivered in shipping containers to be erected at site. Their modularity is a completely new concept in RTG design and engineering, making them very fast to erect and put into operation.