APM Terminals Tangier: Automated cranes to add productivity and capacity to Africa’s most innovative port

Tangier, Morocco- APM Terminals has announced orders for 12 remote-controlled Ship-to-Shore (STS) cranes and 32 Automated Rail-Mounted Gantry Cranes (ARMGs) to equip the new five million TEU* APM Terminals MedPort Tangier facility now under construction at the Tanger-Med II port complex.

The container terminal will be the second operated by APM Terminals at the Tanger-Med port complex designed to serve the newest Ultra-Large Container Ships (ULCS) with capacities up to 20,000 TEUs. APM Terminals MedPort Tangier will have up to 2,000 meters of quay length and increase the Tanger-Med complex’s overall capacity to over nine million TEUs. The facility complements APM Terminals Tangier which handled 1.7 million TEUs in 2015. The two terminals promise to give a competitive edge to liner operators and global supply chain executives.

“Our goal is to use proven technology to create high-productivity for our clients on one of the world’s most strategically important trade lanes on the Strait of Gibraltar,” stated APM Terminals MedPort Tangier Managing Director, Dennis Olesen.

Morocco is an increasingly attractive site selection location for global manufacturers and supply chains with over 700 manufacturing facilities including automotive, aeronautics and textile companies. German-based Siemens is building a windmill blade factory.  French-based Renault, operates an auto manufacturing facility producing 250,000 passenger cars annually, and French-based auto parts manufacturer Valeo is investing €50 million in production facilities.

Opening in 2019, the deep-water terminal will employ both conventional and fully-automated operations and a truck gate system. The STS cranes will be delivered at the end of 2017 by Shanghai-based ZPMC, and feature full automation, including a remote crane operator safely located in an office building near the quay, a second trolley, and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology.  The 32 ARMGs will be delivered at the end of 2017 by Austrian-based Künz and deployed in 16 container yard blocks, each serviced by two ARMGs.