Return of the K–10000

Twenty four years ago Fridtjof Krøll, then owner of Danish crane manufacturer Krøll Cranes, asked his German-born chief engineer Berthold Lang to design a giant tower crane that would appeal to contractors building nuclear power stations. By 1986,15 of these cranes had been built and shipped. But a combination of the end of the love affair with nuclear power and the collapse of the Soviet Union has meant that the K-10000 has not had the commercial success that its engineering deserves.

That may all be about to change with new markets finally opening up for it in shipyards, offshore fabrication bases and conventional power stations. Never before, it seems, has this beast been in such demand.

The K-10000 has quite remarkable specifications. It is rated at more than 10,000tm, lifting 240t at 44m. Quite simply it is more then three times bigger and stronger than any tower crane ever built, before or since. Fully constructed, with a maximum jib reach of 100m, it lifts 94t at the tip end. The winch has a 10,000kg line pull. The maximum line speed is 50m/min with a 13t load. Height under hook is 85m, and overall height is 120m.

On top sits an auxiliary crane which is a large tower crane in its own right, rated at 400tm. Most often this has been a Liebherr 386 model, but a Krøll 400D has also been used.

First orders

Krøll’s exclusive US distributor for its large cranes, Tower Cranes of America, found the first customer in 1978. General Public Utilities (GPU) of Morristown, New Jersey, purchased the first unit for the construction of Forked River nuclear power plant in southern New Jersey. In March 1979 the crane was being assembled on site. The base section was installed on its footing, the tower and jib sections were pre-assembled on the ground. Then the USA’s worst nuclear disaster struck the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Three Mile Island was also owned by GPU. Sensing immediately that the accident would become a major strain on its resources, GPU promptly suspended construction at Forked River, then later mothballed the project, and finally abandoned it.

Though some of the K-10000s did see active service and contributed greatly to the projects on which they were used, this blighted start in life seems characteristic of the chequered history that the model has endured.

Tower Cranes of America bought back GPU’s K-10000 and within three months had found a job for it on hire to Public Service of New Hampshire for the construction of the Seabrook II reactor. On this project it had been calculated that a day gained or lost would save or cost $2m – $1m in power production and $1m in interest payments. The K-10000 would cut six months from the construction programme. In return, Tower Cranes of America got $150,000 a month in rental income.

Four years later, with construction 70% complete, Public Service of New Hampshire went bust. The project was never finished and the US nuclear programme came to an end. All reactor orders in the USA made subsequent to 1973 were cancelled prior to completion.

That crane was one of two K-10000 s bought by Tower Cranes of America. Today it is in storage in Rhode Island. The other has stayed in storage in Denmark, unused.

Soviet units

The other 13 units that were built by Krøll all went to the Soviet Union for nuclear power plant construction. A massive rail-mounted tower crane was particularly suited to the Russian construction method of building reactors in a line. The tower could serve them all by running along the rail. In the West, reactors tended to be built in a cluster, so several fixed towers were needed.

The last K-10000 ever built was delivered to the Soviet Union in 1986. Only five of the 13 Soviet units were ever erected before the Chernobyl accident and the collapse of the Soviet Union put an end to the nuclear construction programme. Eight of the 13 were never used.

The full story of the Soviet cranes remains something of a mystery. Exactly where they have been for the past 15 or 20 years is not clear. What we do know, however, is that they are starting to re-emerge from various parts of the former Soviet Union. So far, six of the Soviet 13 are out. Of the rest, one is known to be half-erected 300km from Moscow, another is in storage, and another is reported to have been damaged during the civil war in Chechnya.

The first K-10000 to come out of the former Soviet Union arrived, via dealers in the UK and Norway, at Aker’s shipyard on the Norwegian island of Stord in 1997. It is still there today, working at full height and with an 85m jib. ‘It has turned out to be a fantastic investment for the shipyard,’ says Bjørn Grønhaug, director of Grønhaug Maskin-Service and the man who sold the K-10000 to the shipyard and commissioned it.

On the very next day after the crane was installed, the yard took delivery of an offshore platform for disassembly of the topside. With its vast reach, the K-10000 can easily work an area the size of four football fields. And with its heavy lift capability its appeal as a dockside crane is clear.

‘The price was high, but the capacity is fantastic,’ Grønhaug says. ‘It is the ultimate tower crane.’

A second Soviet unit is also in Norway, in Õlen, a neighbouring island to Stord. Westcon has had it in storage for three years, having failed to secure the project for which it acquired the crane.

A third has been working in Keppel’s shipyard in Singapore since May 2000.

The fourth and fifth are in China. working on nuclear plants designed and furnished by Russia. One had previously been in Murmansk, the most northwestern part of Russia on the Barents Sea.

The sixth, which had been lying idle in Russia from 1986 to 1999, was bought two years ago by Van Seumeren, initially to move boom sections around its yard. But soon Van Seumeren – now Mammoet – identified a new market for this crane. And it is here that the story of the re-birth of the K-10000 really begins.

The EPA gets tough

In October 1998 the US Environmental Protection Agency had decided it was time to clamp down on the power companies that were polluting the globe with excessive nitrogen oxide emissions. The EPA announced measures intended to cut emissions from coal-burning plants by 85% in the Ohio River Valley, the Great Lakes area and the Northeast.

Most power companies seemed to take breaching EPA regulations in their stride. The $500,000 annual fine was regarded as a licence, given that clean-up costs could be $1bn a plant. Then last year the EPA got really tough and told the owners of 18 power plants that unless they fit selective catalytic reduction equipment (SCRs – or scrubbers) on their boilers and meet their emission targets within two years, they would be shut down.

The utility companies that own the power plants cannot afford to shut down production, tear apart the plant and reconstruct them, and lifting heavy equipment onto the boiler area is not an easy prospect. The loads that need placing weigh anything from 40t to 100t. A typical power plant is huge, the boiler is right in the middle, and there is not always room to bring a big crawler crane inside the plant. Structures up to 60m high obstruct lateral access to the boiler from outside. It’s a tricky task. Sometimes a big Manitowoc or Demag crawler can be the answer. Certainly companies like Marino and Essex, which have fleets of heavylift crawlers, are very busy in the power sector.

There are some cases, however, where the only machine that can make any sense of the height, reach, clearance and capacity numbers is the K-10000. Just how many plants will require Krøll’s big beast is not clear. Carl Marino thinks no more than a couple of the forthcoming projects would be beyond his fleet. Ask the people from Krøll, and the response is a silent wink and a smile. Clearly they think they know something.

One of the first utility companies to have the potential of the K-10000 brought to its attention is Cinergy, whose plants include Gibson Generating Station in Owensville, Indiana – one of the world’s largest coal-fired power plants. Cinergy is spending something between $500m and $1bn to reduce emissions at Gibson from 0.5 pounds per million Btu to 0.15 pounds per million Btu.

Placing the necessary emissions control equipment there is as difficult as anywhere and, after a fact finding tour to see the Stord crane at work in Norway, Cinergy shipped over Mammoet’s K-10000 from Rotterdam to Indiana. The crane arrived in December last year, took three months to erect (which Krøll considers quite quick) and went into service in March. Cinergy plans to have completed the remediation work on Units 1 and 2 at the plant by May 2002.

With the change in the US presidency, from Bill Clinton to George Bush Jr, there has been a shift in environmental and energy policy. On the one hand, the new Republican regime has sounded less concerned about emissions than its Democratic predecessor, suggesting the possibility of a softer line on cleaning up existing gas fired power stations.

On the other hand, there is a massive power shortage ahead, and President Bush has openly declared his support for a return to investment in nuclear power. A power station building programme – particularly a nuclear one – could see the final seven K-10000s out of the east within the next couple of years. And as soon as that happens, a market opens up for Krøll to begin making them again.

They get bigger yet

If a market for mega towers opens up again, Krøll has drawings 80% finished for the steel structure of a 20,000tm crane, the K-25000, lifting 200t at the end of its 100m jib. This was designed in the mid 1980s in response to an enquiry from Bulgaria. Chernobyl put a stop to that work. The K-25000 was originally designed, like the K-10000, as bottom slewing so that the jib is always square to the tower. Advances in steel technology now enable these cranes to be top slewing.

The bottom line

Today, Krøll – part of the Muhibbah/ Favelle Favco group since 1997 – will quote you $9m for a new K-10000. If you can get your hands on a used one, expect to pay $1m to $3m, depending on condition. If you are interested in the K-25000, expect to spend something in the region of $14m.