Japan’s heavy lifting and specialised transport company Denzai K.K. has announced that it will introduce a 2,500-t crawler crane this year, the LR12500-1.0, which is manufactured by Liebherr in Germany.
With this introduction, Denzai will be the first company to acquire the Liebherr LR12500 in Asia Pacific. The crane is scheduled to be delivered from Germany in July 2024, and then start operation in October at S-Oil’s Shaheen Project in Ulsan, South Korea. Afterwards, the crane is planned to be deployed in Japan and overseas.
Denzai pointed out that as the amount of electricity generated by offshore wind increases, the height and weight of offshore wind turbines are becoming larger and larger. “The construction of even larger offshore wind turbines is expected to become impossible with the 1,350-t crawler crane, which is the largest crane that we currently own,” explained the company. “In the Round 1 and Round 2 offshore wind turbine construction projects currently underway in Japan, the weight of the towers will be different from the European specifications, and the Japanese specifications are expected to be even heavier.”
The working radius of the cranes [in Japan] is also likely to be larger than that in Europe, added Denzai. This is because “some Japanese ports have less strong wharves than those in Europe, and the cranes must be installed further away from the wharves. Furthermore, if the nacelle’s weight exceeds 800 t, it will be impossible to lift the nacelle at the far side of the vessel with a single 1,350-t crane, and we estimate that two 1,350-t cranes will be required.”
The LR12500 crawler crane to be introduced can lift up to 951 t with a working radius of 48 m, thus satisfying the requirement with only one crane. According to Denzai, the decision was made to install the crane to meet the height and weight requirements of offshore wind power in Round 1 and Round 2, and to assemble and construct offshore wind components with the crane for the floating offshore wind farm that is expected to follow.
Images: Liebherr
