Early in the morning, April 27th, there is a rockslide near the factories of Norske Skog Saugbrugs in Halden. Several buildings are damaged, and fortunately none of the people inside the area are injured. Left behind is 2,000 cubic metres of rock mass to be removed, as well as a mountainside that must be secured against future rockslides. Nordic Crane are quick to deploy the largest crane the company possesses, to aid with the clean-up work.
“It took about a week from when we received the request to assist, until the crane was fully rigged and operational,” explains Paul Karlsen, COO of Nordic Crane Heavy Lift.
“If you take into consideration that the crane comes ‘split up’ into 40 truckloads and has to be installed ‘in place’, I think the reaction time is quite impressive and says a lot about us as a company,” he says.
The crane in question can be assembled in many different ways and rigged based on what it’s to be used for. In Halden it was fully rigged, with all equipment in use. The lifting capacity is an enormous 650 tonnes with a relatively short boom, but during the clean-up work at Saugbrugs, a boom length of 150 meters was required, with and 25 tons on the hook. A job the crane manages with confidence.
“The landslide brought with it an enormous amount of rock mass and in addition to removing this, it was important to secure the landslide site. To achieve this, our crane was used to lift in an excavator and a drill, as well as assist in the actual clean-up, as there were large machinery and equipment that had to be lifted out,” Karlsen explains.