41International Bulk JournalIssue 3 2013

Shipping Ports & LogisticsCommodities

Belgium

Equipment

E-Crane: Big in BelgiumE-Crane customers remain loyalwith several projects in Belgium

E-Crane Worldwide, the engineering and heavyequipment construction company, based inAdegem, Belgium, has a proven track-record withsatisfied customers all over the world. Maintaininga presence in its home country remains a top

priority, however. In recent years, many Belgian companieshave discovered the advantages of working with E-Crane.This has led to an important share for E-Crane in theBelgian market, including cranes in the port of Antwerpand Ghent.

E-Crane Worldwide provides design services aswell as complete machine production, installation, supportand training with on-going service for the heavy equipmentindustry. The E-Crane series offers models with up to 49tonnes duty cycle capacity as well as up to 150ft/50m ofhorizontal outreach and up to 100ft/30m reach below grade.

This is due to E-Crane's innate design featuring amovable counterweight and fixed parallelogram linkagewhich allows for the crane to remain in near perfect balancethroughout its entire operating range. Its modular designallows each E-Crane to be tailor-made to the client’s specificrequirements. Supported by a world-wide dealer and servicenetwork, E-Crane Worldwide is able to offer its customerson-going assistance.

One Belgian company that has discovered thebenefits of a balanced E-Crane is Antwerp-basedSchelde-Natie, one of the biggest Belgian companies in thegrains, derivatives, vegetable oils, and cocoa broad beanssector. In co-operation with Cargill, who is no stranger toE-crane with cranes operating at several Cargill plantsworldwide, Schelde-Natie realised an offloading project inthe port of Antwerp. A 1000 Series / 7317 B GA-E modelwas installed in late 2006 and is used to offload coleseedsinto a bunker.

In the harbour of Ghent, Van Heyghen Recycling(part of the Group Galloo Recycling) has recently installedits second large E-Crane to offload Panamax-sized vessels.The machine is identical to the E-Crane installed therethree years before. Both E-Cranes are 2000 Series / Model21382 GA-E with a duty cycle capacity of 30 tonnes (in grabmode) and a lift capacity of 40 tonnes (in hook mode).These E-Cranes also have an outreach of 38.2m. They areused for loading scrap into handymax vessels, offloadingbarges and coasters, and stockpiling.

The Galloo Group is one of E-Crane’s best cus-tomers with several cranes operational at the differentGalloo sites in Belgium and France. Van Heyghen Recyclingis very happy with the success of the E-Cranes at theirfacility, which is why they have continued coming back to

E-Crane for several reasons, including the long outreach andimpressive stockpiling height, while taking up minimumdock space. The company is also greatly impressed with thereliability and longevity of the machines. Installing E-Cranesin their scrap yard has led to a major decrease in operatingtime and costs of loading handymax vessels. Rik Debaere,CEO of Group Galloo Recycling, comments: "With theE-Crane we are now saving up to 50% in time compared tothe old situation." It is no surprise that the Galloo Groupnow operates more than ten E-Cranes in various scrap yardsthroughout Europe.

E-Crane Worldwide is not only present in theports of Antwerp and Ghent, but also in other importantBelgian terminals. Due to excellent customer relations,E-Crane frequently receives repeat orders. As was saidbefore, both Cargill and the Galloo group have severalE-cranes in operation.

The Multiserv scrap catering project at theCarinox steel mill in Charleroi, Belgium, has three E-Cranesin operation. Multiserv is a division of the HarscoCorporation, and is the world’s single largest provider ofoutsourced, on-site mill services to the global steel and non-ferrous metals industries. Carinox is one of the fourEuropean production sites of Ugine & ALZ, the Europeansubsidiary of Arcelor’s Stainless Steel Business Unit.Thanks to the successful installation of the third E-Crane inCharleroi, the Carinox steel mill now has a design capacityof handling about one million tonnes of stainless steel peryear. The E-Crane assists both in unloading inbound scrapand filling the scrap baskets for the mill.