Huge steel-wielding cargo cranes coming to Mobile terminals

10/07/2009

By Dan Carsen

Between next week and next month, a total of six massive cranes are scheduled to arrive in or near Mobile, Ala., marking key steps toward the completion of ThyssenKrupp’s $4.65 billion steel complex in nearby Calvert, Ala.

The three biggest cranes, produced and tested by Shanghai-based Zhenhua Port Machinery Co., left China last week. They should arrive in Mobile in late November, according to the Alabama State Port Authority, which is overseeing construction of the Pinto Island terminal for the German steelmaker.

Those cranes, worth more than $10 million each, will use magnets to move 36-ton slabs of raw steel from boat to barge for shipment up the Tombigbee River to the ThyssenKrupp facility, where the other three – described by the firm’s crane team manager as “mini port container cranes” – will offload the slabs.

Those smaller cranes (a paltry 93 ft high, with a 180-ft boom and weighing 750,000 pounds each) were manufactured by Morris Material Handling of Oak Creek, Wisconsin, and should be on site next week. In addition to slabs, they can handle steel coils, scrap, and general cargo.

All six cranes, which will be able to “talk” to each other and to the other facility through computerized communication and inventory systems, should be operational by early next year.

Originally, ThyssenKrupp planned to offload raw steel shipped mainly from its Brazil plant, but due to delays there and a slumping market in general, the first shipments are likely to be smaller and to come from Germany. The cranes are expected to handle some 800,000 tons of steel this fiscal year, and more than 2 million tons in fiscal 2011.

The Pinto Island terminal was a key incentive in landing the steel complex at Calvert. A site in Louisiana on the Mississippi River had originally been favored because ocean-going ships can’t navigate the Tombigbee. The Pinto ship-to-barge terminal bypasses that issue.

With its magnetized cranes and ground loading sites, its integrated bar-coding inventory system, and its unique side-by-side barge and ship berth design, the terminal will be efficient in terms of cost, materials, and time, says Judith Adams of the Alabama State Port Authority.

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