Three new giant ship-to-shore cranes – understood to be worth more than £15million – have been delivered to Britain’s premiere container port as part of a major expansion project.

The quayside cranes, which can straddle ships with containers stowed 24 wide with an outreach of 62 metres, arrived from the Far East aboard the Zhen Hua 25 at the “finger quay” extension project to the Port of Felixstowe’s Berths 8&9, which should be complete later this year.

Work began on the multi-million pound 190-metre last year and will allow the port to berth two of the latest mega-ships, carrying 18,000 boxes, side-by-side and increase capacity by 275,000 standard-sized containers a year.

The three new cranes arrived as part of a consignment of five – with the other two destined for a port in Turkey.

They will be unloaded over the next few days as part of a delicate operation, ready to be fitted to the rails built into the quayside before a commissioning process takes place. They bring the total on the £300m berth to 10.

The project has involved dredging 740,000 cubic metres of material to provide the berth and enable a new steel-piled quay wall to be built. The quay has water 18 metres deep alongside.

Writing in the port’s Ship2Shore magazine, chief exective officer Clemence Cheng: “Construction of the extension began in April 2014 and the main civil works will be complete in the fourth quarter this year.

“The Port of Felixstowe is the clear port-of-choice in the UK for the latest generation of mega-vessels and this latest quay extension will enhance our ability to berth a greater number of large capacity containerships simultaneously.”