Erika Barbosa has been appointed Vice President, Sales and Services for Latin America. She joins Kalmar from Caterpillar LATAM and has a long and distinguished history in the heavy industry. Erika will be based in Panama, and focus on supporting Kalmar operations in Mexico, Panama, Argentina, and Brazil. Special focus will be put to Mexico, with Marco Nava joining Kalmar as the Managing Director, Mexico. Marco joins Kalmar from Volvo Trucks.

To strengthen our presence in the industrial segments in Americas, Steve Cianci has been appointed Vice President, Industrial Markets & Counter Balanced Products. Steve joins Kalmar from UniCarrier, a division of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries where he has demonstrated a track record of sustainable growth in his 20+ years in the industry as a sales, marketing, and services leader.

Göran Krave has been appointed Director, Services in the Americas region. He will focus on taking the Kalmar Services business to the next level in the region. Previously, Göran has been responsible for the business development in Kalmar Americas.
Greg Hewitt, Executive Vice President, Americas commented: “I am thrilled to welcome new colleagues in the team. With the right level of winning attitude and the additional skill-sets acquired, we are all set to grow profitably and to win more business.”
Kalmar’s headquarters for the Americas region is in Miami, Florida.The service operations are located in Mexico, Panama, Argentina, and Brazil. Kalmar manufactures terminal tractors in Ottawa, Kansas, and has a wide dealer network within North and South America.

The operator of the Port of Koper in Slovenia, Luka Koper d.d., has ordered a BOXPORTER RMG crane from Konecranes. BOXPORTER is a new RMG with an advanced operating system that gives the crane operator an exceedingly clear view over every container move. The operating system incorporates innovations that have been field-proven by Konecranes in the remote operation of its automated stacking cranes.

“Konecranes is always working towards the future. They have again showed how we can use the latest crane technology, this time to improve the crane driving experience while respecting our environment and terminal characteristics. With the BOXPORTER RMG our crane operators will get better visibility and ergonomics, and thus a better overall driving experience,” said Marko Babi?, Director, Luka Koper Container Terminal.

“Luka Koper is a forward-looking container port, and I’m very happy to receive their enthusiastic response to our innovative BOXPORTER RMG. I’m sure they will be very satisfied by the performance and reliability of this crane,” says Antti Halonen, Sales Manager, Konecranes, Port Cranes.

The Port of Koper was established in 1957. It has grown steadily over the years, and now comprises 12 specialized terminals employing around 1,000 people. It is the leading container terminal in the Adriatic, handling 790,736 TEU in 2015. Luka Koper recently started an important investment cycle worth EUR 300 million. Around EUR 235 million will be allocated to the container terminal itself, enabling an increase from the current annual capacity of 950,000 TEU to 1.3 million TEU by 2020. By the end of 2016, the Port of Koper will operate a fleet of 20 Konecranes RTG cranes, 1 STS crane and 2 RMG cranes. They are all very popular with the port’s crane operators.

Schmidbauer GmbH & Co. KG was challenged by Cuxport GmbH to develop a solution for lifting the monopiles, bound for the Nordsee One offshore wind farm, utilising an existing gantry. However, the crane only offered 600t of lifting capacity and the beam itself had a net weight of 100t so, in fact, the gantry was only suitable for 500t of lift.

Consideration also had to be given to a number of additional complications. There was a special coating on the monopiles that meant attaching rigging equipment was not possible at all points, while height was limited and there was 20m of distance between the gantry’s hooks that were positioned 10m to each side of the centre.

The lift planning team discovered that there were two lifting lugs in the centre of the 45m beam offering a more convenient distance of just 4.75m. However, as Philipp Verges, sales manager global projects and key account manager offshore at Schmidbauer, explained, they were 90 degrees in the wrong direction—the beam was originally manufactured for special lifting of three-legged tripiles—and the forces applied during lifting would have broken the eye plates.

Eventually, a MOD 400/600 beam, sourced from Schmidbauer stock, was used as an inverted spreader, owing to the two pick points above it and the need to bring the slings together in one point. MOD 400/600s offer capacity to 600t at 12m / 40ft and up to 23m / 76ft at lower capacity.

Verges said: “Slings came together in a 600t hook block that allowed us to complete turning of the monopiles. The rigging around the monopiles had to be kept short so we had to deliver [125t] Polytex slings at a special length to fulfill the requirements.”
At the other end of the tandem lift, Schmidbauer provided a Liebherr crawler crane (model LR 1600/2) with wheeled counterweight carrier that allowed it to lift even the second row of each pontoon load from the barge without turning it.

Thirty monopiles were lifted in a five-month period; two travelled on each pontoon to Ambau GmbH in Germany. Verges explained that, if a smaller crawler crane was used, after picking up the first row, Schmidbauer would have had to turn the barge prior to lifting the second unit. Otherwise, the distance would be too far, he added.

The Nordsee One wind farm consists of one offshore substation platform and 54 wind turbines that will be installed in water depths ranging between 25m and 29m. The wind farm is situated in a special spatial planning area reserved for offshore wind energy.