A new fully automated container terminal has been opened at Yangshan Port in Shanghai, China.
The terminal was built with an investment of $2.15bn and represents the fourth phase of Shanghai Port’s Yangshan Port project.
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It is capable of handling a maximum of 6.3 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of cargo.
The Shanghai International Port Group (SIPG) operated Yangshan Port has now become the world’s largest automation port following the opening of the new terminal.
Yangshan Port’s new terminal operating system has been exclusively developed by SIPG’s research and development (R&D) team and is designed to enable port machinery to perform loading and unloading operations simultaneously.
The operating system is spread across 2.23 million square metres of the port’s area.
SIPG president Yan Jun was quoted by China Daily as saying: “The new facility will increase the annual capacity of Shanghai Port to more than 40 million TEUs last year, which marks SIPG is entering a new development phase.”
Jun further added: “Before the establishment of the automation port, which is also the final part of the Port of Shanghai, there were around 20 automation ports in the world, all adopting automation port systems designed and developed by global suppliers.”
Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry (ZPMC) has provided all the machinery for the development, which feature 100% Chinese intellectual property rights.
In addition, SIPG and ZPMC are currently exploring opportunities to create a commercialised operation model for automation port development.
