Up high on the move with an LR 1600/2

Mammoet put its new 600 tonne capacity Liebherr LR 1600/2 to work on its first job straight out of the factory.

The Netherlands-based international heavy lift and transport company used the crane, one of the first of the new model produced, on a project to help lift a 540 tonne load of steel in the Dutch city of Den Haag. Two cranes lifted the 27 x 7 m steel framework onto an existing hotel with the LR 1600/2 carrying a 300 tonne portion of the total.

The steel construction was slowly raised off the ground on its way to becoming two new floors of the luxury hotel. Before the load slings were attached to the hook the Mammoet team connected 300 tonnes of floating counterweight, which, added to the central ballast and the superstructure counterweight, gave the crane 515 tonnes of counterweight.

On completion of the load‘s 50 m vertical journey, the LR 1600/2 set its crawlers in motion. At the same time the second crane slewed and the load was positioned. At about 1 m per minute the 40 m move lasted nearly half an hour.

In two days the Mammoet crew erected the crane with 72 m of main boom and derrick system. "Already on this initial erection every thing worked extremely well," said Mammoet crane driver Thomas Kutscher. "In future we shall probably do this in one and a half days," Kutscher continued.

After the job in Den Haag the crane will be shipped to Algeria where it is due to work for at least a year on a refinery project.