Video: Port Everglades Receives Three Record-Setting STS Cranes

Port Everglades, Florida has taken delivery of the world's largest low-profile STS cranes. 

On Tuesday, three Super Post-Panamax container gantry cranes - the largest of their kind worldwide - arrived in Port Everglades aboard a heavy lift vessel. The three 175-foot-tall cranes, valued at $14 million each, can handle containers stacked eight high from a ship’s deck and reach 22 container rows across. Port Everglades' existing gantry cranes are only 150 feet high, and they are limited to containers stacked six high and 16 rows across. 

“The state-of-the-art cranes are pivotal to allowing our customers to grow their businesses in Broward County so that they can compete in the global marketplace,” said Port Everglades chief executive and director Jonathan Daniels. “The advantage is that the extended reach of the cranes enables customers to work larger ships and gain economies of scale, thus making Port Everglades more competitive.”

In addition to the new cranes, the seven existing low-profile Post-Panamax gantry cranes will be upgraded to a lift capacity of 65 tons, up from the current 46.5 tons. That will add the capability to perform twin-picks (lifting two containers at a time). All will be fitted with special low-impact lighting to minimize impact on nesting sea turtles. 

The new cranes are part of the port's $3 billion twenty-year expansion plan, which will add new cargo berths, expand cruise and energy handling capacity and improve navigation channels to handle larger ships. These investments include lengthening the port's Southport Turning Notch from 900 feet to 2,400 feet to allow for up to five new cargo berths, which will add about 730,000 TEU to the port’s nameplate capacity. Construction for the $471 million project is ongoing and expected to be complete by late 2022. 

Port Everglades is also working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deepen the port’s navigation channels from 42 feet to 48-50 feet and to widen narrower sections of the channel for safe vessel passage.