Kobelco supplies further Johnson expansion

19 February 2015 by Daniel Searle

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UK crane company GH Johnson Crane Hire has added two Kobelco CKE800G crawler cranes to its portfolio.

Supplied by Kobelco Cranes Europe, the cranes have a capacity of 80t at 3m, and represent the 17th and 18th Kobelco crawler cranes in GH Johnson's fleet.

The cranes are due to be delivered in April, following an inspection of the cranes by GH Johnson at Kobelco's facility in Kobe, Japan.
In the last 12 months, the crane rental company also purchased five new CKE-G series cranes, comprising three CKE1350G crawlers and two CKE1100G cranes.

Demand for the crawler cranes is currently very strong, said GH Johnson, due to jobs across the UK on projects such as hotels, schools, sports stadia, bridges, tunnels, flood prevention works and shaft construction.

Paul Johnson, managing director at GH Johnson, said: "At the moment, we have several Kobelco cranes working on both the Crossrail tunneling work and the National Grid London network upgrade, and a couple of others working on water treatment and flood prevention jobs."

"In total, we will have upwards of 70,000 hours experience with Kobelco crawler cranes and have never had a serious breakdown or mechanical fault. This reliability is one of the main reasons we have stuck with Kobelco for our new cranes. We also get an excellent service from Kobelco in the UK and we have been able to develop a good relationship with all of their people."

GH Johnson’s Kobelco CKE1350G crawler crane in operation at Beckton, London, rigged with a 30m main boom, and five falls with lifts of up to 55t.