Evergreen Marine Corp. (EMC) held an official opening ceremony for the newly built Terminal 7 at Kaohsiung Port on 14 August. The Taiwanese ocean carrier worked closely with Taiwan International Ports Corporation (TIPC) to develop the new box terminal.
The facility is one of the most important projects that Taiwan’s shipping industry has undertaken in recent years, according to Evergreen, which invested in operating systems and handling equipment, such as ship-to-shore (STS) gantry cranes, automated rail-mounted gantry cranes (ARMGC), reach stackers and side loaders, while TIPC was responsible for the construction of the port infrastructure.
Terminal 7 is equipped with five berths with a draft of 18 meters, a quay length of 2,415 meters, and 24 STS gantry cranes, including 19 remote-controlled ones. Among them, 16 gantry cranes are 55.5 meters high and can handle ultra-large container ships with 25 rows of containers on deck, improving the quayside operation efficiency. Additionally, Evergreen has installed 60 ARMGC and 24 smart gates in the terminal. All gantry cranes at Terminal 7 are electric-powered and reach stackers and side loaders are equipped with high-standard, eco-friendly engines.
The five berths of Terminal 7 will be inaugurated in two phases. Currently, Berth S5, S4 and S3B have become operational while Berth S1, S2 and S3A are scheduled to commence operations in July 2024. When fully operated next year, Terminal 7 will allow four 24,000 TEU container ships and two feeder vessels to berth at the same time.
With a yard area of approximately 1.5 million m², the facility is able to store 89,238 TEUs of laden containers and 43,656 TEUs of empty boxes. Over the long term, the terminal is expected to achieve an annual handling volume of 6.5 million TEUs.
In his remarks at the opening ceremony, EMC chairman Y.I. Chang said, “Evergreen consolidated the cargo handling services in Terminal 4 and Terminal 5 of Kaohsiung Port and moved the operations to the advanced Terminal 7, removing the trucking demand to haul containers between the two separate terminals and cutting carbon emissions from such transportation.”
He went on to add, “We made a significant investment in automatic and energy-saving equipment and also launched ‘Containerlink’, an online platform which improves service quality by integrating truck appointments for cargo delivery/pickup, container yard operation and digital payment systems.”
With the introduction of 5G communication systems, optical fiber connectivity, and Internet of Things (IoT) information networks covering the entire site, together with Evergreen’s intelligent terminal operating system (EMCTOS), optical character recognition (OCR) technology and real-time power consumption monitoring system, Evergreen said it can effectively coordinate port operations and improve the efficiency of container yard, making Terminal 7 of Kaohsiung Port one of the most advanced container hubs in the world.
