Manitowoc 18000 lifts long for India power

One of India's largest energy contractors is using a Manitowoc 18000 crawler crane in the expansion of a power plant in the country.

Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd. (BHEL) is using the 600 tonne capacity 18000 as lead crane for the construction work on Gujarat State Energy Generation (GSEG) plant.

"We put the Manitowoc 18000 on site in January 2009 and have used it for a huge range of tasks," said KJ Prabhu, construction manager for BHEL on the GSEG job. "It has erected all the large elements for the expansion, but we also used its excellent boom and luffing jib combination to lift smaller components into places that were difficult to reach."

TIL, Manitowoc's dealer for Grove and Manitowoc cranes in India, sold the crane to BHEL. It was bought for this project, which is in Hazira in the Surat area of Gujarat state.

The largest lifts for the Manitowoc 18000 were a 300 tonne gas turbine and a 250 tonne generator for which the crane was rigged with 48.8 m of main boom. In addition, it was used to place 14 tonne steel columns at 30 m radius.

For more remote load placement, the crane worked with 67.1 m of main boom and a 30.5 m luffing jib, to lift modules weighing up to 13 tonnes at heights of up to 30 m. In this configuration it also placed exhaust stack shells at heights of up to 75 m.

Expansion at the GSEG plant will cover four hectares and will deliver a 350 MW combined cycle power plant comprising a 220 MW gas turbine generator, a 130 MW steam turbine generator and a heat recovery steam generator. Existing capacity is two 52 MW gas turbines and a 52 MW steam turbine.

"Our company has built power plants in India for over 40 years, but this latest rise in demand is unlike anything we have ever seen," added KJ Prabhu.

The US$200 million GSEG project is scheduled for completion in March 2011.