Heavy expansion at Pekkaniska

Pekkaniska, headquartered in Finland, has embarked on a fleet expansion programme, with an emphasis on heavy cranes. The company has more than 4,000 pieces of lifting equipment (cranes, telehandlers, forklifts and access platforms) and is the largest lifting company in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia, said Jere Penttinen, heavy cranes manager at Pekkaniska.

The expansion programme started earlier this year and will continue into 2007. For the heavy crane division there will be seven Liebherrs: an LTM 1500-8.1 and two each of the LTM 1200-5.1 and LTM 1400-7.1 telescopic wheeled mobiles; plus one each LR 1350/1 and LR 1750 lattice boom crawler cranes. All cranes were ordered with full equipment, Penttinen explained, and the first, one of the LTM 1400-7.1s, was delivered in September.

The average age of equipment in the Pekkaniska fleet is just under two years, Penttinen said, “which is several years less than most of our competition or any similar company anywhere in the world.”

In total, more than 30 cranes have been ordered from Liebherr for this expansion programme. In addition to those already listed for the heavy division, the following are also part of the general expansion: LTM 1040-2.1 x 11, LTM 1070-4.1 x 8, LTM 1095-5.1 x 4, LTC 1055-3.1 x 1, and one HS 855 HD duty cycle crawler crane.