The largest truck-mounted telescopic crane in the Baltic states was delivered from Germany to the Klaipėda port. The new crane with the lifting capacity of 500 tons was manufactured by “Liebherr” under the special order and purchased for EUR 2.9 million by “Strėlė logistics”.
The crane boasts outstanding technical parameters: lifting capacity of 500 tons allows lifting 300 cars in one go, cargo lifting height of 134 meters corresponds to the height of a 45-story residential building, and cargo can be relocated to the distance of 100 meters from the location of the crane which matches the length of a football field. The operating life of such a crane exceeds 20 years and at times can last up to 30 years.
“Every year we invest approximately EUR 2 million in the renewal of our park, purchase of new cranes, and increase of the number of rented mechanisms. However, this year’s investment in the acquisition of the new truck-mounted telescopic crane of the highest lifting capacity is the largest in the entire history of our company,” stated Kęstutis Slavinskas, the Chairman of the Board of “Strėlė logistics”.
It took approximately 3 months to produce this truck-mounted telescopic crane according to the special order. Mažeikiai-based company “Strėlė logistics” has chosen the maximum available characteristics of the crane: 50 m telescopic arm, additionally selected 91 m flexible winch, 165 t counterweights, and arm reinforcement system in order to obtain higher lifting capacity.
According to Mr Slavinskas, the decision to invest in such a crane was determined by the needs of the regional market, since the implemented projects are increasingly faced with higher speed and lower costs requirements applied to complicated equipment and structure installation works. Thus, with this crane on the market, its capacities will enable assembling the installed item on the ground to the greatest possible extent and then lift it to the required location in one go, which will allow saving very expensive assembling time at a height, and also will eliminate the necessity to rent cranes of lower lifting capacity for long periods.
There are a lot of opportunities to use the truck-mounted telescopic crane with the lifting capacity of 500 tons – it can be used for installation of chimneys, boilers and reactors, assembling of bridge elements and other large structures and mounting them at sites, performance of maintenance works on wind turbines, installation of transformers and other industrial equipment, as well as using at all industrial construction and reconstruction sites.
“There were no cranes of this size and type in the Baltic states until now. When required, they used to be delivered from Germany, Poland or Finland. However, delivery, installation and administration costs of cranes and their equipment used to be very high. Our company has plans to use the new crane in all three Baltic states, so we will be able to offer reasonable prices and flexible and fast implementation of lifting projects,” says Mr Slavinskas.
Until now, the park of cranes rented by “Strėlė logistics” consisted of 35 truck-mounted cranes with the lifting capacity of 35 to 250 tons and overall load moment of 9,406 t-m. With the acquisition of the new crane, it will increase up to 11,017 t-m, and “Strėlė logistics” will remain the largest company working in this field in the Baltics while ranking the 130th–150th in the world.
In 2014, the turnover of “Strėlė logistics” amounted to EUR 5.40 million and exceeded the rate in 2013 by 12%. 60% of company income comes from the Lithuanian market and 40% from the export abroad – to Sweden, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland.