LTM 1230-5.1 – Deployed in the Port of Oslo

A Liebherr LTM 1230-5.1 mobile crane has lifted a 12-metre-long ship ashore in the Port of Oslo. The “Pelikan II” had to go to the shipyard for its annual overhaul. Since 2021, this purely electrically powered ship has been collecting waste and flotsam in the extensive harbour area of the Norwegian capital. It is equipped with two deck cranes and a catcher basket. The floating rubbish collector is deployed to keep the shipping lanes free of flotsam and prevent plastic waste in the port from entering the sea via the Oslo Fjord.

During the lift, the “Pelikan II” weighed 43 tonnes together with the special lifting beam and lifting gear. With a radius of 14 metres, crane operator Sigurjon H. Viktorsson lifted the ultra-modern ship out of the harbour basin with his crane. The LTM 1230-5.1 had 52 tonnes of ballast on board. In the shipyard, the ship will be prepared for its next season as a rubbish catcher. “We will launch the ship again in a fortnight's time. We do this once a year,” says Sigurjon. The seasoned crane driver with his four-year-old 5-axle crane spends most of his time performing tower-crane assembly work in Oslo and the eastern part of Norway. “It's a great crane for this work. I can reach the height I need with the 75-metre telescopic boom. And the ballast of up to 72 tonnes can be placed on different radii. This means I can also work in tight spaces or maximise the load capacity with a large ballast radius,” says Sigurjon, clearly delighted about the advantages of the long telescopic boom combined with the VarioBallast® system. On average, he sets up and dismantles his tower crane twice per week, and sometimes completes special jobs like this one in the port.

More emission-free construction machinery in future

The Port of Oslo is considered a pioneering project for environmentally friendly solutions in Norway. The capital is already one of the most ecologically ambitious cities in the world, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a minimum by 2030. From 2025, no cars with combustion engines will be allowed to drive in the city centre. And the city's authorities are also increasingly demanding the use of emission-free equipment on its construction sites. In autumn 2023, the first Liebherr LTC 1050-3.1E compact crane was put into operation here. It is conventionally powered while on the road, but can carry out all work with zero emissions and noise using construction site electricity. Today, four months later, nine of these pioneering machines are already in use in the greater Oslo area. Three LTC 1050-3.1E cranes from the Liebherr plant in Ehingen were delivered to Nordic Crane alone.

Nordic Crane, headquartered in Oslo, is a family-run crane and special transport company that also has numerous branches in Sweden and Denmark. Nordic Crane, which belongs to the Kynningsrud Group, is the second largest crane service provider in Scandinavia with almost 200 cranes and 16 locations. Liebherr machines make up around 70 per cent of its impressive fleet.