New container crane for Patrick Terminals

Crane ship Zhen Hua 24 arriving on 27 December

A new container crane for the Patrick container terminal at North Quay was unloaded yesterday morning (Sunday 29 December).

Crane ship Zhen Hua 24 arrived from Shanghai on 27 December and is due to depart for Melbourne tomorrow morning (Tuesday 31 December) where the other two cranes it is carrying will be unloaded. (See the ship's departure time here.)

Patrick is upgrading a container crane that it took away from Fremantle about five months ago.

Patrick now has four post-panamax cranes and Fremantle's other container terminal, DP World, has three.

Zhen Hua 24 berthed at North Quay

The new crane will take six weeks to commission.

It weighs 1250 tonnes, is 86 metres high and 118 m across with the boom horizontal.

It can handle ships with a 48-metre beam.

According to the latest Waterline* report by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics, compared to other Australian container ports, Fremantle has the best wharfside crane rate.

Fremantle also has:

• highest percentage of containers transported by rail
• best container turnaround time on landside
• best truck turnaround time.

(*Waterline #64, BITRE)