The Mexican market was growing strongly until October 2008, says Bernabe Cortez, executive manager of Monterrey-based rental company Grúas ABC. But since then, demand has declined by 30%. His 150-person company, founded in 1981, does crane service, transport and rigging, as well as waste management.

“The likes of the trend of growth in the civil construction market we have not seen in 40 years,” says Ernesto Uriegas, director of Latin American sales for Terex Cranes. “The slowdown of the economy does not mean that the projection has been erased; it is still there and the needed allocation of cranes is highly in demand.”

The government has plans to spend USD3.7bn on roadbuilding alone, including completing highways between Mexico City and Tuxpan, Mazatlan and Durango, and Monterrey and Saltillo, as well as starting a Mexico City highway bypass, according to the Latin American Herald Tribune. When completed, the Durango–Mazatlan highway bridge will be the tallest and longest in Latin America, says Adolfo Garza, Manitowoc Cranes general manager in Central America. He adds that Manitowoc has seen an improvement in residential

and civil construction in the last couple of months.

For the country’s biggest crane rental company, Eseasa, oil is a key driver of demand. “It is a patchy market, where most work is concentrated on the oil-rich land, in the southeast,” says Reynaldo Santos Jr, son of Eseasa’s founder.

“Southwest is developing more business with the wind industry, but most work is mid-country and below.” Santos Jr is also vice president of the company’s Houston, Texas, subsidiary Gulf Special Services.

Mexico was the world’s sixth-largest oil producer in 2006, and state-owned producer Pemex has a monopoly. So its own development projects, including a USD1bn oil refinery in the southern Mexican state of Tabasco, also come from government coffers. Also under construction (probably) is a huge new-build container port in Punta Colonet, Baja California, plus water treatment plants and wind farms across the country (known locally as ‘eolic energy’).

“This investment has not been seen in former sexenios,” says Uriegas from Terex, referring to the six-year term of Mexican presidents. Felipe Calderón has been president since 2006.

“This is an ongoing project, and with the [financial] crisis or without it, these plans will happen.” He believes that infrastructure has a trend of growth in the next few years.

The biggest winners are likely to be the big construction firms such as ICA, Dragados Offshore, McDermott and Iberdrola. And from a crane point of view, most contractors own their own. The managing director of a Tijuana-based crane rental company (who wished to remain anonymous) says that he rarely gets work out of big projects near the border. These projects attract big contractors, who truck in everything–labour and equipment–from central Mexico, where rates are cheaper, instead of sub-contracting work out to local suppliers.

Andrés Magallón is the general manager of the crane division of AMECO, a subsidiary of large construction contractor ICA Fluor. AMECO rents about half its crane fleet to the company, and rents the rest out bare (without operators). When asked whether he sees big project business filtering down to smaller suppliers, he says no: “I think hard times are coming for small companies.”

Jacks of all trades

AMECO, which runs 64 cranes out of 20 branches, has all its bases covered, says Magallón. “A lot of contractors own their cranes so we sell to them, we rent to those that don’t want to be owners or that don’t have the money to buy.”

Only four or five crane rental companies cover the whole of Mexico, says Santos Jr of Eseasa, which has about 300 cranes. But he adds that several local firms work around the capital city of each of the 31 Mexican states. “Most contractors own their own equipment, only on special needs do they rent it. Two of the nationwide crane companies started as contractors.”

Eseasa rents cranes only with operators, and has specialised in not just providing cranes, but offering construction contractors a complete lifting service, analogous to a contract lift in the UK. “What we do, we provide ‘integral’ service for our customers. We come up to them, analyse their project and see their critical lifts. Based on the time frame we provide a project supervisor, equipment, operators, riggers, helpers, maintenance crew, fuel and all lodging, meals and legal expenses for our personnel wherever the project is,” says Santos Jr.

Other companies have also spread their services to meet market needs. The demand for new cranes from contractors, coupled with the economy—”like the rest of the world, we need more cranes than we can get,” Magallón says—has led AMECO to market itself as a jack-of-all-trades. It rents and sells, and it is also, unusually, a non-exclusive dealer for both Manitowoc and Terex. “We are a dealer for JCB and Case, we understand our market and we sell everything; we are with God and with the devil. We distribute Grove, Terex, Palfinger and National, Terex RTs and Terex Demag AT products. We know it is not common, and Grove and Terex are not happy about it, but it helps keep them honest. If we don’t get a crane with one of them for sure the other will be pleased to deliver the product.” Other Mexican crane renters and dealers include Maquinter, TRACSA, United Rentals, Prime Equipment and Cat Rental Stores.

In terms of crane specifics, US mobile crane brands Terex and Manitowoc dominate in Mexico, partly because of tax breaks from the North American Free Trade Agreement. Grúas ABC, for example, runs mainly Groves.

The most popular mobile cranes are rough terrains, ranging from 30 US ton to 70 US ton, says Terex’s Uriegas. Unlike the rest of North America, rough terrain cranes can drive on local roads, as long as there is a signal car or police escort at front and back. Eseasa prefers Terex RTs.

“Most people find it easier to use an RT than an AT,” says Santos Jr. “Most of the operators learned using old friction rigs and Pettibones [telehandlers]. Sad but true, the equipment over here is not as good as the ones in the USA; we still welcome the friction rigs as long as they are not for the oil and power jobs. Boom trucks are also very popular because they are just a truck that anybody can drive and the crane is easy to use,” says Santos. He adds: “One thing I am sad to say is that most people bypass the LMIs. Nobody would do that on a tower, see?” Garza at Manitowoc says that it is seeing a greater demand for large all terrain cranes with capacities of 200t and

above. “These units can cover a lot of applications and are becoming

more popular.”