A Decade on Mobile Harbour Crane is Still Impressing Customers

EUROPE – WORLDWIDE – Crane maker Liebherr is currently celebrating the reliability and longevity of its LHM 550 mobile harbour crane having a decade of sales under its belt, and now seeing the 300th delivery of this model.

One of Poland’s largest port handling operators based in Gdansk, Port Gdańsk Eksploatacja S.A., recently took delivery of the 300th LHM 550. For the company, which carries out handling activities on a total area of over 89 hectares, it is one of the largest investments in the company's thirty-year history.

The crane supplied has a boom length of 48 metres and a lifting capacity of up to 104 tonnes and the new machine will have to endure the usual hard life for such rugged machines as it will primarily be used for bulk handling of coke, coal and scrap metal. Radosław Stojek, Chairman of the Board of Port Gdańsk Eksploatacja S.A. explained why the LHM550:

"We want to increase the effectiveness, functionality and speed of our services. The quality of our work processes will improve significantly. This will have a positive impact on our handling rate. In addition, our customers can expect faster handling of the commissioned vessels.

”We greatly appreciate the extraordinary mobility of this machine. We trained our crane operators at an early stage and carried out extensive modernisation measures in the port area in advance so that we could use the machine as quickly and as efficiently as possible."

The Liebherr mobile harbour crane series is suitable for a wide range of applications. For example, the LHM 550 can be used for bulk or general cargo handling as well as for container handling. Even heavy-duty lifts of up to 154 tonnes are possible. Statistics show that a large number of Liebherr customers use the LHM 550 for several applications. Well over 200 of the units sold are used for at least two or three applications. Of these, most are used for bulk and container handling.

The success story began with the delivery of the first LHM 550 to Kuwait in 2010. As the most popular crane type in the Liebherr mobile harbour crane portfolio, the LHM 550 has contributed significantly to Liebherr's market leadership in the mobile harbour crane market, which has lasted for more than ten years.

Further to the possibilities in application, multiple drive types also make the model versatile. In addition to a hybrid drive concept consisting of diesel and electric motors, the cranes can also be used exclusively in electric only operation, thus making an important contribution to emission-free goods handling. Over 30% of the LHM 550s sold in the 2021 sales year were equipped with an electric main drive.

In every year since its market launch, a double-digit number of this crane type alone has been delivered worldwide. In terms of sales per country, India leads the ranking with 23 units sold, closely followed by Italy and the US, in 2021 alone 26 LHM 550s were sold worldwide.