Two rail-mounted gantries for the container terminal arrived at the port of Koper recently. They will be assembled in the next months and installed on dedicated rails, which are currently being constructed.
Each RMG weighs 300 tonnes and is electrically powered, which means quiet operation and no direct gas emissions. They will be used for container handling on the railway sidings of the terminal and will allow higher productivity in comparison to existing handling equipment. In the past months two additional railway tracks were built, so the new RMGs will be able to operate on five trainsets. A third RMG is to be delivered in 2017.
The investments are dictated by the growth of container traffic, which increased by 158 percent in the last eight years, reaching 790.736 TEU in 2015. »We can’t afford to fall behind our competitors. By 2020 we shall invest more than EUR 230 million in the container terminal alone, extending the quayside, stacking areas and purchasing new handling equipment. These investments are crucial if we want to continue to be the first container port in the Adriatic« said Mr. Dragomir Matić, president of the management board of Luka Koper.
In the period from 2007 to 2015 the Koper container terminal has registered higher growth rates than other large terminals around Europe. Since 2010 it is also the largest terminal in terms of throughput. In the first six months of 2016, they handled 423.265 TEU, which is an 7,5 %-increase compared to the first half of 2015.
