The first 1,500 tonne capacity Liebherr CAL 64000-1500 Litronic heavy lift offshore crane is ready for operation. Built in Rostock, Germany, by Austria-based Liebherr-Werk Nenzing, the crane has been installed on the Innovation, a vessel owned HGO InfraSea Solutions.
The 1,500 tonne capacity is at a working radius of 31.5 metres and at almost 46 m the crane still lifts 1,000 tonnes. Boom length is 105 m and its lifting height above the deck is more than 120 m. The crane’s dead weight is 1,500 tonnes and it has a 4,000 kW electro-hydraulic drive system.
Its first work will be installation of offshore wind turbines in the Global Tech I wind park in the North Sea off the coast of Europe. Capacity is sufficient for turbines of 5 megawatts and higher, their rotors, and the heaviest foundations, to a water depth of 50 m, Liebherr said. It reduces set-up time and raises productivity. Oil and gas production is another field of application where the crane can be used for assembly and disassembly of platforms and other structures.
The “crane around the leg” design requires special installation planning. The crane can rotate 360 degrees around one of the four jack-up legs of the vessel. It means that the crane must be positioned before the vessel leg. The crane’s size also means changes in production. Clearance heights and widths in the workshops and on internal site roads had to be enlarged. After manufacture the crane was transported to Poland in component sections weighing up to 600 tonnes for final assembly at the Crist Shipyard in Gdynia.
Liebherr said there is increasing demand for this type of high performance heavy lift crane for the offshore industry. In the last two years Liebherr said it delivered five of a total market of eight units for the heavy lift jack-up vessel market worldwide.
Author; Alex Dahm
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