The Container Terminal Management of the Port of Douala (RTC) has received delivery of five Konecranes Liftace reachstackers and an empty container handler to increase the productivity of their operations.

RTC is part of the Port Authority of Douala and has been in charge of managing the terminal on the west African coast since January 2020. Douala is one of central Africa's largest ports, also providing sea access to the landlocked regions of Chad, the Central African Republic and the northern area of the Republic of the Congo.

RTC is keen to update its multimodal terminal with reliable, modern container-handling equipment to increase its capacity as demand continues to rise, with an average annual throughput of 370,000 TEU travelling on sea, road and rail. The forklifts are used for most of the export yard operations and taking care of empty containers.

“Our terminal has been using Konecranes products for years, and they've provided outstanding performance,” says Adepi Martin, chief operation officer of RTC. “We're sure that these new Konecranes lift trucks will help us to maximise our efficiency all the way from landside to quayside, reduce vessel anchorage time and transit time, and improve container truck turnaround.”

The five new reachstackers are Konecranes Liftace SMV 4532 TCE5s, 45 T lifting machines able to stack up to five containers high.

The empty container handler is an SMV 6/7 ECC 90, with a wide mast for the option of stacking six empty high-cube containers or seven standard containers.