truck crane Archives

Crane overturns in Lichtenstein

A mobile swing cab industrial crane overturned last week in Balzers, Lichtenstein, while picking & carrying a large concrete panel.

The crane an 18 tonne Bollhalder Bakran 90, with an articulated boom, owned by Autokran Ag Rheintal was travelling close to an embankment leading down to a stream when the swinging load took the crane over sideways. Fortunately the operator was unhurt. And quick action by the fire service managed to prevent any serious contamination of the stream.

A large All Terrain crane was called in to lift the overturned machine back onto its wheels.

Crane auction raises $35 million

The Energy Crane auction in Casper, Wyoming, yesterday raised over $54 million, a new record at Ritchie Bros for a single owner sale.

The sale included 38 cranes, which fetched over $35 million. Around 3,000 on-site and online bidders competed to buy the cranes and transport equipment.

Highlights of the auction included a 500 tonne 2010 Liebherr LTM1500-8.1 All Terrain that fetched $3.35 million—the most expensive All terrain Crane sold by Ritchie Bros. to date.

Ritchie Bros chief executive Ravi Saligram said: “Our extremely successful Casper auction, featuring high-quality cranes, trucks and trailers, is one of the largest underwritten complete dispersals the Company has ever done”.

“The strong performance and pricing we achieved today reflects the power of Ritchie Bros.’ brand to reach and attract buyers from all over the world. This auction epitomized our strong customer relationships, our marketing prowess, our operational know-how, and most importantly the trust consignors place in us with their high-value fleets.”

750 tonne Liebherr LG 1750 for Baldwins

UK rental company Baldwins Crane Hire has taken delivery of a 750 tonne Liebherr LG 1750 lattice boom truck crane for its heavy crane division.

The LG 1750 combines the superstructure, booms and jibs from the LR 1750 crawler crane, with a compact eight axle 16x8x16 chassis.

Liebherr GB managing director Richard Everist said: “Baldwins are well established in the heavy crane sector and already have an impressive fleet of Liebherr cranes. The addition of the LG 1750 takes their capability to a new level and we are delighted to support their growth.”

Wayne Baldwin, heavy cranes sales director, added: “We are pleased to take delivery of the Liebherr LG 1750. It is the newest and most advanced crane in the heavy lift class. Some of our competitors’ fleets consist of heavy lift cranes that are over 30 years old, which would be better placed in museums!”

Tadano to expand Mantis plant

Tadano is investing $2.5 million to expand its Mantis crawler crane plant in Richlands, Virginia, adding at least 25 new jobs.

Mantis is based in Franklin, Tennessee, and apparently considered adding capacity in either of its two locations, but chose Virginia which offered a number of grants and other financial aid.

The announcement of the expansion was jointly made by Virginia’s governor Terry McAuliffe and Tadano’s Shiro Morita. McAuliffe said, “I am thrilled to announce this win for Tazewell County, creating 21st century jobs in sectors like advanced manufacturing is critical for diversifying the industrial base and building a new Virginia economy, and we are proud that Tadano Mantis is a part of our efforts.”

Morita- chief operating officer of Tadano Mantis – added: “We are very
excited about our Richlands plant expansion. We can hire more workers from local communities. We can have more suppliers and vendors locally, too. We are looking forward to seeing the completion of this expansion as soon as possible.”

Support for the state aid came from the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the Tazewell County Industrial Development Authority, and the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority which approved $140,000 of funding, while the Governor’s Opportunity Fund donated $100,000 to assist Tazewell County with the project.

The company is also eligible to receive state benefits from the Virginia Enterprise Zone Program, administered by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, while employee training grants will be provided through the Virginia Jobs Investment Program.

Doyle Rasnick, chairman of the Tazewell County Industrial Development Authority said: “We are very excited for Tadano Mantis as they embark on an expansion that will bring more skilled jobs to our county. They have a product that is not only being sold in the USA, but also expanding throughout the world. Our board has taken pleasure in working with them and helping them get to this point and will continue to work even more closely as they grow in the future.”

Virginia senator Benton Chafin also got a word in, saying: “The new investment by Tadano Mantis Corporation is a big step forward in bringing much-needed manufacturing jobs to Tazewell County. Manufacturing is a key factor to economic growth and helping the citizens of Southwest Virginia find new jobs.”

Mantis telescopic crawler cranes were launched in 1979 after the manufacturing company Spandeck acquired the rights to the Turtle Telescopic cranes and introduced a nine and 11.9 tonne models. The company went on to introduce further models and also entered the special mobile cranes for re-railing and recovering locomotives as well as a number of other special heavy duty cranes.

Spandeck was acquired by Tadano from the Mitchell family in December 2008, and is gradually being integrated in to the business. The crawler crane line now ranges from 27 to 120 tonnes.

The company headquarters in Franklin is on the southern outskirts of Nashville, the plant in Richlands, is a quiet relatively remote town in the mountains of south west Virginia.

Profit spike at Kobelco Cranes

Kobe Steel, parent of Kobelco Cranes, has published its third quarter results, showing a sharp rise in profits within the crane business.

Total crane sales for the nine months to the end December were ¥51.7 billion ($440.6 million), an increase of 29.8 percent on the same period last year. Operating profit for the nine months leapt 75 percent to ¥4.5 billion ($38.3 million) with the rising trend continuing during the third and into the fourth quarter.

The company said: “The strong sales are due to higher shipments of crawler cranes in Japan due to continued strong demand from higher public investments and other factors. In overseas markets, sales increased in Asia, where demand continued to be strong, and in other regions.”

Kobelco Cranes expects the trend to continue and confirmed its full year forecasts of revenues of ¥71.6 billion ($610 million) – almost 27 percent higher than the previous year, while operating profits will be in the region of ¥5 billion ($42.6 million), 75 percent up on 2013/14.

Allegiance Crane has used a Liebherr LTM 1400

American crane service provider Allegiance Crane has used a Liebherr LTM 1400-7.1 mobile crane to lift the largest bronze horse statue in the world at a theme park in Florida.

The bronze sculpture, named the Pegasus and Dragon, measures 33 metres high and 63 m long. It weighs 650 tons, 250 tons of which is bronze and 400 tons of which is the internal steel construction. The sculpture is welded together from 1,250 individual bronze plates.

The sculpture has been created for the Gulfstream Park on Hallandale Beach, Miami, Florida, USA by German art foundry Strassacker. It took eight months to construct and is part of the $30 million Gulfstream Park theme park project, which is close to the internationally renowned Spring Racecourse.

The bronze cast was made at the Strassacker Chinese foundry, south of Beijing. The sections were then shipped to Miami and assembled on site piece by piece. Engineering agency Stark Ingenieure was responsible for developing for the technical planning, including licence and permit application, support structure planning, workshop and assembly planning. The production and construction of the steel structure on site was carried out by Wendel steel construction of Donzdorf.

In order to securely fix the bronze parts of the steel structure, a flexible mounting system suitable for the Florida climate was engineered. The system was designed to compensate for the different ways in which steel and bronze react when exposed to heat (bronze expands and steel remains rigid). The sculpture was also designed to withstand hurricanes.

The 400 tonne capacity LTM 1400-7.1 was used to install the bronze components. It was configured with Y-guying system and full ballast. The heaviest component of the Pegasus was the left wing, which weighed 58 tonnes and was lifted at a radius of 22.3 m. The head of the Pegasus is made up of sections weighing between 45 and 50 tons.

To overcome any potential problems during the task, the lifts had been planned on a simulator using 3-D data for the LTM 1400-7.1 supplied by Liebherr, a spokesperson added.

Michael Stark, owner of Stark Ingenieure and Günter Czasny deputy CEO, said, “Adam Cote, the manager of engineering at Allegiance Crane, and his team were extremely professional on the site. We worked extremely well and closely with each other. And the crane produced an absolutely amazing performance. It has a compact design and has excellent setup processes coupled with enormous load capacities which meant we didn’t even have to move it between the various hoists. This saved us around half the time which was very important to us.”

The theme park is due for completion by summer 2015.