Another stage of the Port of Tauranga's $170 million growth programme is complete with the arrival of a 850-tonne, multi-million dollar crane capable of handling some of the world's largest ships.
The Liebherrship-to-shore gantry crane arrived at the Port in pieces at 1am yesterday after travelling from the southwest coast of Ireland.
It will be off-loaded during the next few days, before being put together like a "massive Meccano set," according to chief executive Mark Cairns.
Mr Cairns told the Bay of Plenty Times it was the port's seventh gantry crane, the precursor to a 50 million cubic metre dredging programme expected to start towards the end of the year.
"This is us getting ready for dredging, which will give us the capability to one day host 8000 TEUs [twenty-foot equivalent containers]," he said.