Mammoet’s new heavy lift crane will create new opportunities for offshore wind and oil and gas projects, the company predicts.
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Mammoet will release its new record-breaking land-based crane to the market in coming months, with the crane expected to play a key role in offshore wind projects after its testing phase.
With a maximum lifting capacity of 6,000 tonnes, the Mammoet SK6000 can lift components weighing up to 3,000 tonnes to a height of 220m.
The SK6000 uses 4,200 tonnes of ballast to lift with a maximum ground bearing pressure of 30 tonne per square metre.
The crane offers a main mast length of up to 171 metres, and by using the fixed jib attachment can reach a total lifting height of 274m.
The crane design uses containerisation techniques for ease of deployment and can be transported using shipping containers to any location worldwide.
The SK6000 also offers full electric power capability from battery or supply from the grid, allowing customers to reduce the carbon impact of projects significantly.
Gavin Kerr, Director Global Services at Mammoet, lauded the crane and its pathway to its first job.
“This crane is truly a world record feat of engineering, with a production schedule to match”, said Gavin. “Hundreds of colleagues have been directly involved with its development across the business.
The SK6000 is currently completing a testing phase at Mammoet’s Westdorpe facility in the Netherlands, with the company saying the crane is expected to be ready for deployment to its first project later this year.
Full of Energy
Mammoet expects to find a strong market for the SK6000 in offshore wind projects, aiming to “increase efficiency in a sector that has suffered from supply chain issues, due to its rapid growth in recent years.”
“The SK6000 will also benefit the offshore wind industry by allowing large energy and infrastructure projects to build from bigger pieces, whilst reaching first power sooner, and more cost-effectively,” the company said.
Mammoet also expects the SK6000 will help reduce integration times for offshore Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) oil and gas facilities, while helping deliver expansion projects and offshore builds with increased uptime.
“This is benefiting both scopes via modular construction techniques that allow critical path components to be simultaneously built offsite anywhere in the world, before transporting components to site ahead of installation,” Mammoet says.
Mammoet says the SK 6000 will enable modular construction on a larger scale than ever before, cutting down on the number of operations and crane reconfigurations and reducing working at height during heavy industry projects.
“Like other cranes in the SK range, it reduces disruption and preparation on site by using a centralised ballast design that only requires a section of its ring, according to the needs of each project,” the company says.
The centralised ballast frees up space by about 45%, the company says, allowing operations around the crane to continue and the FPSO to launch faster.
Using the same design as the SK190 and SK350 before it, the SK600 occupies a similar overall footprint to its predecessors, allowing construction to take place on a scale not previously seen the land-based cranes, Mammoet said.
Mammoet sales director Giovanni Alders said the capacity of land-based cranes has previously been a limiting factor when developing a modularisation strategy for FPSOs.
“As FPSO designs scale up, not only are module designs growing larger and heavier, but flare towers are also becoming taller than ever before. With our SK6000, we can install flare towers of up to 1,500t and 150m in height in a single piece,” he said.
“With the innovation of the SK6000 crane, our customers can think bigger than ever before; pushing modules beyond the 4,000t and even 5,000t barriers. Its low ground bearing capacity also means the crane can be used all over the world.”
“With its long outreach, small minimum footprint and relatively small site impact, the SK6000 greatly reduces the topside integration time. Needless to say, with larger building blocks you spend less time connecting and testing, and more time producing,” Giovanni said.
