Kalmar Industries has received one of the largest orders to date for its Edrive ESC straddle carrier, with a request for 29 units from MSC Home Terminal in Antwerp.

All 29 machines have a three-high stacking ability, and 15 units are equipped with Kalmar's extendable twinlift spreaders, which have a 50 ton (45 tonnes) capacity. The 29 machines are due for delivery late this year and early next year.

Financial details of the contract were not released.

MSC Home Terminal is a joint venture between Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) and Hesse-Noord Natie NV. Hesse-Noord Natie was acquired by PSA Corporation Ltd in 2002 and handled 4.3m TEU that year. The PSA group has terminals in Belgium, Brunei, China, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Portugal, Singapore and Thailand, and handled 28.7 million TEU in 2003.

Hesse-Noord Natie's partner in Home Terminal Antwerp, MSC, is one of the biggest global container shipping lines. Founded in 1970 and based in Geneva, MSC operates a fleet of more than 200 vessels with a total capacity of more than 500,000 TEU.

Kalmar will establish its own sales company in Belgium, Kalmar Belgium NV, on June 1 through the acquisition of BIA NV's materials handling equipment division in Antwerp. Damien Cols, currently BIA sales manager, will become managing director, and Vincent Josse, currently BIA technical manager, will become technical director.

Before the new arrangement, Kalmar had two distributors in Belgium: BIA and Catracom NV. BIA focused on heavy products, while Catracom sold Kalmar's counterbalanced equipment. Catracom will continue as a Kalmar distributor.