At the moment we only deal with lifting cranes.

We are part of Van Es Holding, which consists of Dieseko, a manufacturer of PVE piling equipment, Jack-Up Barge, which has a rental fleet of barges that raise up, and Worldwide Equipment, which rents marine equipment such as floating barges and tugboats.

This unique group of companies all work together. If we get an enquiry for a crane, sometimes at the same time there is an enquiry for a barge, and it’s our crane on the barge.

The main line of our business is steel erection and marine work; port and bridge construction, LNG plant erection work.

We have a yard in Holland, a yard and office in Jacksonville, Florida, a yard and office in Trinidad, a yard and office in Dubai, and a storage facility in Singapore.

The cranes move from place to place. We still growing. By the end of the year, we will have 80 cranes. We are like a little Sarens or a little Mammoet, but we are not going to be a lifting contractor. We are a rental company.

We try to work with the least number of people possible. Contractors need a complete engineering department. At this moment there is plenty of work, but when times get worse, for us it is simple to survive. We have the equipment, but not a large overhead.

We have 20 people on the payroll – an operations manager, bookkeeping staff and two mechanics – at each location. We also rent the cranes bare, without operator. If someone needs an operator, we can supply them, but they are not on the payroll.

We are now focussing more and more on bigger cranes. We have ordered several 550t Kobelcos, and we are talking to Manitowoc about the 750t 18000. Because we focus on bare rental, it is more difficult to go any bigger.

We are looking at the Manitowoc because of the dollar-Euro exchange rate. We do business all over the world. We do see a trend for Euro contracts instead of dollar contracts, even in the USA, because of the weakness of the dollar. We were expecting resistance, but so far there has been no real resistance. That may be because the crane shortage in the market is on our side.

The Van Es group was established in 1976 by Paul Van Es with Dieseko. PVE Cranes was established in 1999 in Florida. The Van Es group has a majority stakeholding in PVE Cranes, and I have the minority stake.

I think the large crane segment is still very good for the next 3-4 years, because it is oil and gas, energy-related.

Joost Boemer, vice president