PRESS RELEASE – Wallenius Wilhelmsen has invested in a new mobile crane for its terminal in Zeebrugge. This means breakbulk customers will soon no longer need to rely on the availability of hired cranes, speeding up time to market for manufacturers and project forwarders.

The company has ordered a 750-tonne Liebherr LTM 1750-9.1 crane which it says is the highest specification mobile crane on the market today. It will be introduced at the terminal early next year and help to increase operational efficiencies and providing more flexible services for breakbulk customers.

In particular, the crane is expected to speed up the lifting of breakbulk and project cargo from barge and truck onto WW’s specialised of ro/ro equipment.

Belgium and the port of Zeebrugge are increasingly becoming a preferred transit hub for breakbulk products, the company states, adding that delivery and on-carriage of products by barge is growing in popularity as an environmentally friendly transport option.

The new Liebherr crane is capable of lifting 150-tonne pieces of products into and from barges. The maximum weight the crane can lift from a truck trailer onto a roll trailer or multi-purpose bogie is even higher, at 270 tonnes.

“This investment further extends the capabilities of both WW Solutions and WW Ocean at Zeebrugge,” says Vedran Muratbegovic, senior manager for global breakbulk business development at WW Ocean. “We are no longer dependent on crane hire availability, avoiding potential supply chain disruption, providing greater flexibility and speeding up time to market for our breakbulk customers.”