“2005 has to be considered a peak period as many terminals in the world had to deal with an increasing volume of containerisation and the fleet was not at the required level,” says Charlotte Kuhn, of Noell Mobile Systems & Cranes’ sales team. “Noell was particularly successful because of the performance our machines are giving, combined with low-cost operating resulting in low-cost service.”

This year has been good, albeit with a budget fixed at a lower level than 2005, she says.“But 2007 seems to be promising for Noell,as the order intake is giving very nice signals.”

Kalmar says its straddle carrier deliveries have continued at a strong level worldwide in 2006. Recent major orders have included 19 ESC 350 straddle carriers for Aarhus Stevedore Kompagni (ASK) in Denmark; the 7th generation machines will be equipped with Kalmar’s Smarthpath container position verification system and Remote Monitoring Interface and will also be ready for automation, with inbuilt provision for sensors, should ASK decide to upgrade to an automated system in the future.

At present, ASK handles about two-thirds of the Port of Aarhus’ 500,000 teu container throughput using 17 Kalmar reachstackers at its old terminal. As part of the port’s 25-year expansion plan, it will begin operations from a new 33-hectare terminal in spring 2007, when it will also switch to a straddle carrier system to support three post-panamax ship-to-shore cranes operating on the 800-metre quayside.

Ilkka Annala, Kalmar’s vice president, straddle carriers, says current improvements in Kalmar’s 7th generation straddle carrier range include tier 3 emission level electronically controlled engines, improved ergonomics in the cabin, improved AC drive and a hoist system with energy regeneration – allowing brake/lowering energy to be transferred to other functions rather than be wasted.

“Energy saving is an area where we are developing our products;increasing fuel prices have sharpened the focus on this point,” he says.“Solutions like the energy regeneration and energy usage optimisation are high on our priority lists.”

Mr Annala also reports an upsurge in orders for fourhigh straddle carriers:“With this solution, terminals can increased their container storage capacity by 50% compared to using three-high straddle carriers and still keep all the advantages of a straddle system, including excellent crane productivity and minimum amount of labour per ship-to-shore crane,”he says.

“New larger and larger ships also mean larger peak box volumes in terminals. Our 7g SC range offers full selection of 40- and 50-ton SWL mechanical and electrical carriers in both three-high and four-high configuration.”

Kalmar is also reporting increased interest in full service contracts: “Our customers can choose if they want to buy their machines with full service contract or, for example, share service work between their own service personnel and Kalmar professionals,” says Mr Annala. “Often modern container terminals want to concentrate on their core businesses and propose that Kalmar handles both machines and service.” A typical example of this is P&O’s ATGW terminal in Belgium, where Kalmar delivered 18 new 7g SC straddle carriers with service contract last year.

This year,Tilbury Container Services (TCS) awarded Kalmar a contract for the refurbishment of 13 straddle carriers. This project came on top of an existing contract whereby Kalmar carries out routine servicing of the entire TCS straddle carrier fleet – about 40 machines and a mix of Kalmar and other brands.