Africa’s first Liebherr LTM 1650-8.1 goes to Allied Crane Hire

A gap left by a discontinued model

Allied Crane Hire, headquartered in South Africa and operating across sub-Saharan Africa, has run an LTM 1500-8.1 since 2012. That model has now been discontinued after more than 23 years in production and some 626 units delivered worldwide — Liebherr’s best-selling large crane. With enquiries in that performance class increasing, the company went looking for a successor with more capacity, and settled on the 700-tonne LTM 1650-8.1.

Depending on the equipment package, Liebherr rates the newer crane at between 15 and 50 per cent more capacity than its predecessor. It also inherits the LTM 1500-8.1’s interchangeable telescopic boom concept: operators can swap between 54-metre and 80-metre booms by exchanging telescope section three, complete with roller head, for sections three to five.

“The goal, however, is not necessarily to always be the first recipient of every new model. In most cases, these new models become available at exactly the moment we were looking for a crane that fits certain job requirements, which is an important criterion in every procurement decision.”

— André Engelbrecht, General Manager Africa, Allied Crane Hire

Ballast radius and jib erection

The crane is specified with VarioBallast, VarioBase and the NK System, a hinged luffing jib assembly arrangement that cuts the ground space needed to rig a long luffing jib. On the LTM 1650-8.1 the ballast radius is hydraulically adjustable between 6.4 and 8.4 metres — the trade-off between capacity and the space actually available on a congested site.

Francois Pretorius, Sales Manager Mobile and Crawler Cranes at Liebherr-Africa, reports that the automated luffing jib erection was what the operators singled out during familiarisation training: the operator moves the joystick and the sequence runs itself, which he links to both reduced strain and improved safety.

Straight into mining work

The crane arrived in early September and had been pre-booked before handover. The following week it lifted a 70-tonne heat exchanger for a South African mining company, working at a radius of 15 to 16 metres with 125 tonnes of counterweight. Since then it has been deployed largely on mining sites.

The purchase brings Allied Crane Hire’s Liebherr fleet to 20 machines, among them two LTM 1160-5.1, two LTM 1200-5.1, two LTM 1230-5.1, three LRT 1090-2.1, two LRT 1100-2.1, an LTM 1070-4.2, an LTM 1110-5.1 and an LTM 1150-5.3. The company has previously been first in sub-Saharan Africa to receive the LTM 1110-5.1, LTM 1150-5.3 and LTM 1230-5.1.

Source: Liebherr — Photos: Liebherr