Cranes incoming

The upgrade of terminal facilities and, first of all the transshipment equipment, which age reaches, as experts say, 30 years at an average, is a burning issue for the Russian port industry. Crane manufacturers offer more and more interesting solutions that enable good saving on operation of the handling equipment and improve the quality of services provided at ports. At the same time, this gives rise to a debate which model of harbor crane construction is more efficient – using single straight jib or applying double jib level luffing principle.

“We have the cranes fleet upgrade only at seaports, but those are very rare cases, while nothing occurs at all at river ports ", the expert complains.


Modern technology is basically available at the large marine container terminals. According to the expert, special qualification of Russian specialists in crane equipment is at very low level. "It is necessary to establish a system of regular maintenance of cranes at the ports, to restore the system of staff training", Mr. Leiphert said.

The global financial crisis has only added to the problem, but if the Russian stevedoring companies want to continue their activities, they will have somehow to deal with the renovation of cargo handling equipment.

Fortunately, there are currently several well-known manufacturers, both domestic and foreign companies, among which are Liebherr, Ardelt, "Baltkran", "SMM", "TechnoRos", who are willing to supply their own equipment to Russian consumers.

The main current trend in crane construction is the reduction of energy consumption of machines, fitting it out with electronic automated control systems that increase accuracy and reduces the impact of the "human factor". Yet it’s true, the crane producers’ approach to the solution of this problem differs, giving Russian stevedoring companies a ranged choice and the possibility of picking up such vehicles, which are tailored best to specific needs and operating conditions.

According to chief designer of the crane construction company SMM CJSC, Alexander Zhuravlev, "it is not just about how much we save on purchase and operation of a crane, but also to what extent it meets the challenge."

Competition on the cranes market forces producers to introduce new technologies and systems, improving performance of the machines for operation in difficult conditions. Thus, SMM JSC has developed a gantry crane "Aist" (Stork), capable of operating at extremely low temperatures down to -65 Cº, which is especially important for the Russian Far North. Previously, the company’s cranes were designed to operate at temperatures down to -40 Cº.

For river ports SMM JSC designed the crane Strizh (Swift) lifting up to 25 tons, with a capacity in clamshell mode up to 430 tons an hour.

Other domestic crane manufacturer - Technoros presented a new series of cranes during Transtec-2010 Expo. Among the company’s new products - a gantry slewing crane with a straight single jib and a gantry double jib luffing crane. The harbor cranes are equipped with frequency control system.

The German company Liebherr is also seriously interested in the Russian market and eyes the launch in Russia a production of crane spare parts in 2011. To date, the company offers machines equipped with Cycoptronic systems preventing rocking. Also there is a system that allows manipulation of two cranes in tandem from a crane’s cabin (auto sync), useful while handling heavy loads, too heavy for one crane. The Pactronic system provides for boosting the machine speed by 20%, reducing by the same figure the energy consumption. There are tower cranes worth EUR600,000-700,000 produced for river ports.

According to Herman Ignatov, sales director of Liebherr-Russland LLC, double jib level luffing cranes of lifting capacity of over 100 tons become ineffective, as he said, because their «steel intensity increases dramatically." Therefore, the main direction of development will be the production of cranes with a straight jib, says Herman Ignatov.

Specialists of another German company – Ardelt, promoting on the Russian market its own double jib level luffing cranes, adhere to an opposite view. According to Victor Mathis, the project manager of the company, these cranes offer several advantages to ensure maximum performance of handling operations. In particular, to change the radius of the balanced crane system with double jib level luffing principle there is less force needed to reduce and increase the jib radius, so these systems are characterized by high efficiency and low power consumption. In addition, due to lower load on the main support the crane’s double jib is more durable versus the crane with a single straight jib.

According to Ardelt company, which has supplied to the Soviet Union and then to Russia, more than 3500 cranes over the past half-century, has made a major leap as well in crane-building technology as in electronic systems. Cranes have become more mobile, easy to operate, with a higher ratio of useful activity and increased energy efficiency. Competing for the customer, cranes manufacturers offer exclusive terms - from the construction of crane on the individual technical requirements to reduction of the delivery terms up to 6-8 months "from a project to installation".

Containers vs cassettes

If we talk about the container terminals, the choice here is more than just great. For example, SMM JSC offers a mobile jib crane Peresvet for unloading of Panamax container ships, which has self-propelled installation, capable to carry containers and unload them at a time.

Talking about new technologies, one should mention the system developed in Finland aimed at handling and transportation of goods using cassettes. According to Andrei Yegorov, an expert of the Adm. Makarov State Maritime Academy, the cassettes technology helps to save the ship’s load space or storage by 25% and significantly boost handling operations at the port. At the same time, the Russian ports use for handling Ro-Ro vessels roll-trailers, each worth about EUR20,000 versus EUR8,000 for a cassette. In the long term the special cassettes may be used for transportation of cars. The disadvantage of the cassettes technology is that it requires at the port of arrival special trucks, translifters.

Cassettes can be used at ports during the Ro-Ro and Sto-Ro operations. They are stacked on the deck close to each other, thus preventing their mobility at rough seas, and as the cassettes are not fastened to the ship deck the offloading process significantly increases. A cassette weighs is less than a roll-trailer, which also increases the actual load of the vessel.