In our fleet: Peru

Grúas Alquileres is one of Peru's largest crane rental firm's with a fleet of over 90 cranes commercial manager David Melgarejo explains the company's origins and how it grew to become the business it is today.

Grúas Alquileres S.A. (GASA) was established as Gruas SA in 1973. It was the crane rental division, with operators and maintenance services, of Stiglich Transportes SA, Peru's largest heavy haul, oversized and specialized transportation company. Stiglich Transporters was founded by the Stiglich family in 1938.

Since its foundation, GASA has driven the development of the local crane rental industry, setting local standards through innovation and training of its engineers and technicians in the US. Nowadays GASA and Stiglich Transportes S.A. are part of the Ultramar Group from Chile and is aiming to expand its operations in the Andean countries.

The most important asset of GASA is its trained and committed people. It is Peru's largest crane rental company and it owns around 90 cranes. It has 200 employees.

GASA cranes and other related lifting equipment, such as forklifts and manlifts, are used in many projects as mining facilities construction, mining equipment assembly, logistics operations for the oil and gas companies, infrastructure construction, and power plants construction.

Services are provided throughout Peru. GASA focuses on the mining and oil industriese. Construction and energy are important as well, especially due to the gap of investment in infrastructure that the Peruvian government is aiming to shorten. Most mining projects are located on the highlands of the Andes. Oil and gas projects are located mainly in northern coastal zones and along the Eastern Amazon rainforest

GASA's hydraulic cranes range from 6t-450t, including rough terrains, all terrains and truck mounted cranes; its lattice boom cranes range from 35t-600 and include truck mounted cranes as well as crawlers. The fleet is composed mainly of Terex cranes,with some Grove all terrain cranes and Linkbelt crawler cranes.

Recently GASA has improved its fleet by purchasing a 350t Terex AC350 and a 450t Grove GMK7450. This investment will contribute to improved service capability, particularly to the mining and construction sectors. GASA decided to buy each crane because of a government contract with several mines working on maintenance. There are some regulations in the mines relating to the age of the cranes working there. GASA has a lot of experience in the mining sector and is well aware of the standards that need to be adhered to: cranes cannot be older than 10 years and certain companies have specific rules relating to the equipment that is used there.

GASA is partnered with the Crane Institute of America. Our general manager has established links that allow many of our staff to work with them to train. GASA staff attended their seminars, and then we began to send our engineers over there to train. We began this process in 1999 when we first started to get our engineers certified.

Our office is located in Callao on the central coast of Peru. We also have another office near Arequipa.

David Melgarejo, commercial manager,
Grúas Alquileres