04.06.2009

Q-Plant takes six

Manchester, UK, based rental company, Q-Plant Hire has ordered six more Kobelco crawler cranes for its fleet with a combined value of £2.5 million.

The new cranes include four 80 tonne CKE800s, a 110 tonne CKE1100, the first in the UK, and a 135 tonne CKE1350.

The CKE1350, which has already been delivered, went straight to work on a long-term contract with contractor Costain on Thames Water’s West Ham flood alleviation scheme at the Abbey Mills pumping station in East London.

The crane is providing the main lifting services at the 23 metre deep tunnel shaft-head where a 3.3km, 2.8 metre diameter tunnel system is being excavated to drain storm water from the surrounding sewerage network for treatment at Beckton Sewage Treatment Works.
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Q-Plant’s new 135 tonne Kobelco CKE1350 at the Abbey Mills pumping station in East London

Rigged with a 42.7 metre main boom, the crane is in constant daily use for both hoisting out and dumping the eight tonne skips of excavated material, and for delivering the pre-cast concrete tunnel lining segments which weigh up to two tonnes each.

Anthony Quinn, managing director of Q-Plant said: “In spite of the downturn in certain sectors of the building and construction market, there are still a number of key projects, particularly in the utilities, power generation and major infrastructure sectors which are essential to the economy and which have to go ahead. Most of these projects need professional and efficient lifting services, and the modern all-hydraulic crawler crane fits many of them perfectly. They offer ease of assembly and operation, an excellent range of lifting duties with flexibility and precision, and are extremely cost-effective in operation.”

“When we created our specialist crawler crane rental operation in 1998, we purposely set out to provide the best in modern fully-hydraulic cranes, and our first unit was a 50 tonne capacity Kobelco BM500, which proved very successful. Since then we have added several more Kobelcos of different sizes, and they make up the core of our 30-strong crawler crane fleet. We find them very reliable and easily transportable - and operators and end-users like them too.”