Kobelco is ready to start shipping its new G-Series medium sized range of crawler cranes, announced at Conexpo. The company has now confirmed that its G-Series of environmentally more efficient crawler cranes, will comprise seven CKE and BME models, from 60 to 250 tonnes capacity. The units will also be on display at Intermat in April.

A new double boom system to increase the lifting capacity of lattice boom cranes has been launched by Liebherr in Germany. Capacity can be increased by more than 50% “with relatively little effort,” the manufacturer said.

At the beginning of July a convoy of low-loaders pulled out of the Liebherr plant at Ehingen in Germany, carrying the components of an LR 11350 crawler crane. The destination was the Basque city of Vitoria-Gasteiz in northern Spain. That was where the new crane, owned by Usabiaga, made its first lift.

US crane manufacturer Shuttlelift has a new series of double-beam mobile gantry cranes. The rubber-tyred DB Series is available in six models, from the 60,000 pound (27 tonne) capacity DB 30 to the 400,000 pound (181 tonne) capacity DB 200. The 140,000 pound (63.5 tonne) capacity DB 70, in standard configuration, has a hook height of 25 feet (7.62 metres). Its clear span is 35 feet (10.67 m) and it is has a 27 foot (8.23 m) wheelbase.

The first unit has now been delivered to German based crane company Mayer headquartered in the town of Burgberg in the south of the country. The company put the crane straight to work on a difficult and complicated job, replacing the starting ramps of one of the two ski jumps in Oberstdorf in the Bavarian Alps.

Liebherr unveiled a new 150 tonne capacity, six-axle all terrain crane at the SMOPyC exhibition in Spain in late April. The LTM 1150-6.1 offers a 66 m telescopic boom, the longest in its class. It has a maximum hook height of 93 m and maximum radius of 76 m with extensions and a double swingaway jib.

“At a boom length of 60 m the crane can lift up to 11 tonnes and is, therefore, ideally designed for the assembly of tower cranes.”

Linden Comansa is launching a new flat top tower crane series. The LC1600 will be introduced in October and comprise three models: the 16 LC 185, 16 LC 220 and 16 LC 260. The LC1600 series has been designed with modularity and easiness of assembly and transport in mind. The 8 to 12 tonne capacity series sits between the existing 5 to 8 tonne LC1100 and 12 to 48 tonne LC2100 series’.

Salzburg, Austria-based Palfinger continues to make design enhancements to its articulating boom cranes, which are available in North America through Palfinger Inc., Niagara Falls, Ontario. The latest development—High Performance Stability Control (HPSC)—has most recently been added to the PK 78002 SH and PK 65002 SH models, which are the two largest models in the SH product line. The PK 78002 SH has a lifting moment of 74.7 tonne-meters. Equipped with up to eight hydraulic extensions, it achieves a hydraulic outreach of 20.4 meters.

Liebherr has introduced a new efficient, low emission mobile harbour crane, the LHM 550, following its successful test and evaluation trials at the port of Odense in Denmark, where it is still working on routine port handling duties. The Liebherr LHM 550 has been designed for all types of general cargo, containers and bulk commodities with its 74 metre lifting height and 150 tonne capacity.

Crane and engine manufacturers have been faced with a range of choices and challenges concerning current and future engine emission laws. At the start of 2011, substantially-reduced emission limits came into force for off-road diesel engine manufacturers.