Media Releases

The Hague, Netherlands and Christchurch, New Zealand – The Port of Salalah has worked closely with Cavotec MoorMaster in implementing a revolutionary vacuum-based mooring system that allows for safe and swift mooring of ships of all sizes at the APM Terminals container facility at th Port of Salalah in Oman. Situated on the southeast coast of Oman on the Arabian Sea, Salalah is one of the region’s most rapidly growing deep-sea container ports, and handled over 2.6 million TEU in 2007.

During the 2007 Southwest Monsoon (Khareef) season in Southern Oman, Port of Salalah and Cavotec carried out extensive trials of the MoorMaster® 600 automated mooring system. The system is designed to provide an automated mooring solution and eliminate vessel surge caused by changes in wave dynamics Such wave action causes vessels’ moored with conventional mooring lines to require extra time for container cranes to load anddischarge containers, affecting productivity. The increased stability of the vessel at the wharf also improves safety conditions for terminal personnel working the ship.

“During the monsoon months of June through September, we were able to reduce ship surge motion along the quay to between 50 and 100 millimeters for all vessels, in all conditions, compared to up to three meters surge when using mooring lines,” says David Williams, MoorMaster Product Manager, based in Milan, Italy.

“This is a good demonstration of innovation helping our customers to perform better” commented Tiemen Meester, Chief Commercial Officer of APM Terminals, in The Hague, Netherlands. “We are very pleased that the APM Terminals Global Terminal Network has been able to play an important role in the successful imlementation of this new mooring system. Anything which can improve vessel turnaround times and increase productivity for our customers and safety for our people is smething we are going to aggressively pursue”, he added.

The largest ships moored during the trials were PS Class (346m LOA) vessels, displacing 112,000 DWT. Cavotec and the Port of Salalah are planning to continue testing the MoorMaster® 600 on the largest container ships in the world, which measure up to 396 meters in length, meanwhile the system is used frequently on vessels calling the port.