October 17 - Wisconsin-based Shuttlelift is targeting the energy industry with its rubber-tyred, mobile gantry cranes.
Director of industrial sales, Kurt Minten, says that conventional lifting methods in the industry - such as boom cranes, reach stackers and forklifts - have major drawbacks and stability concerns, and Shuttlelift's cranes are more ideally suited to the tasks at hand.
In early 2012, Canada-based C-Tech Oilwell Technologies purchased a Shuttlelift SB 30 single beam mobile gantry crane, which is now being used to transport coiled sucker rod and load coils onto trucks and into storage areas in the Middle East, and can manage loads of up to 27 tonnes.
Also in 2012, PCL Industrial Services purchased a Shuttlelift DB 70 double-beam mobile gantry crane and a SB 30 single-beam mobile gantry crane to support its operations in Bakersfield, California. PCL, which used to move large vessels with boom cranes and forklifts, claimed that lifting with the new Shuttlelift DB 70 took considerably less time.
Another global leader in natural gas compression and services has recently ordered the Shuttlelift SL 100II and SL 150II to add to its existing Shuttlelift gantry crane; the two units will be delivered this autumn.
Shuttlelift was also awarded a contract with Caterpillar Global Mining Equipment LLC in Denison, Texas.
"Regardless of which industrial sector you're dealing with, if you do decide to use a mobile gantry crane instead of the other types of equipment, you're going to find that your operation becomes safer and more efficient, which certainly has cost benefits as well", says Minten.
