National boom trucks excel at gas field
07 October 2012
Texas-based Renegade Wireline Services is using two National Crane boom trucks to insert wireline cabling and related tools into natural gas and oil well sites on the Marcellus Shale natural gas fields in Pennsylvania, USA
Rodney Offield, manager of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania branch of Renegade, explains why the NBT45 and an NBT50 were the cranes of choice for this particular job: “We need all the cranes we use on the gas and oil field to have at least 125 feet (38 m) of main boom so that we can place tools into multiple wells without having to move the truck. The cranes also have to have a high load rating at the boom tip to handle the intense weight of the multi-tonne rigging and cable-hoisting operations.”
The NBT45 has a 40.8 tonne (45 US ton) capacity and a 127 foot (38.7 m), five-section full power boom. The NBT50 has a 45.3 tonne (50 US ton) capacity and a 128 foot (39 m), five-section full power boom. Both machines have the option of being equipped with shorter, four-section power booms, but the extra reach is crucial to Renegade’s workflow strategy.
Although Renegade already owns two NBT45s, the firm is currently renting the two boom trucks that are working at the Marcellus Shale sites from Stephenson Equipment based out of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Both National Cranes are mounted on Peterbilt 367 trucks built to meet federal bridge regulations.
