Liebherr is seeing a high demand for mobile cranes in Latin America for the mining industry and for erecting wind turbines. The company has delivered an above average number of mobile cranes to Chile this year, in particular.

Chile is one of the leading economies in Latin America and one of the largest raw materials producers in the world. Felix Mussotter, who is responsible for Latin America in his role as sales representative for Liebherr-Werk Ehingen, says: “Chile has 40 percent of the established copper reserves in the world. It has the largest copper mine in the world. In addition, Chile is increasingly turning to renewable energy. This means that there is a wide range of applications for mobile cranes, for example for assembling and servicing large mining machines and for erecting wind turbines. Sales of mobile cranes in Chile is above average this year.”

Special challenges

Chile is a country full of geographical peculiarities. Only 120 kilometres wide on average, it reaches a north-south extension of over 4,200 kilometres with deserts, forests and eternal ice. The majority of the country consists of mountains up to 6900 metres in height. Fitted with special equipment, Liebherr machines and cranes have to satisfy high requirements, such as working at high altitudes and in extremely low temperatures.

“We are naturally delighted with all the orders, but it is a genuine logistical challenge to ship so many cranes at the same time – starting from the shipping company to handing them over to the customer”, says Hubertus von Sperber, head of the mobile crane division at Liebherr in Chile.

Liebherr forming strong partnerships

Daniel Vega, owner of crane rental company MPM based in the capital, Santiago de Chile says that MPM bought its first new Liebherr mobile crane in 2017. “Today we have ten mobile cranes with lifting capacities between 100 and 1200 tonnes.”

Family-run Burger Grúas is also based in Santiago de Chile and operates 30 Liebherr mobile cranes with lifting capacities between 50 and 700 tonnes. Company owner Raul Burger says: “Our fleet is mainly composed of Liebherr cranes and we use them in various projects from mining and industry to renewable energy. Once again this year, we have made some big investments – we have bought an LTM 1650-8.1, two LTM 1230-5.1s, three LTM 1120-4.1s and an LTM 1060-3.1.”

Liebherr has had a close partnership with Grúas Desmadryl based in Santiago de Chile since 2006. Company’s fleet currently consists of 22 cranes, including the LRT 1100-2.1 rough terrain crane and the 9-axle LTM 1750-9.1 mobile crane.