Shriro Machinery, the Hong Kong-based distributor for Liebherr, had an active 2003 supplying tower cranes for a number of high rise buildings. The most recent to start is the Olympic station project – a project that, like other station projects in Hong Kong, incorporates not just a railway station but also a high rise development for offices and housing. Two Liebherr 200 EC-H cranes were already being used to construct the podium level when in September Shriro put up three more 200 EC-Hs to build five 58-storey tower blocks over the station. These three cranes are on a 15 month rental contract to Sanfield Building Contractors. They have jib lengths in the range of 30m to 40m and will have final under hook heights of up to 180m. All five cranes have a maximum lifting capacity of 10t at 22m. They are being used to place pre-cast wall panels weighing between 6t and 7t. Olympic station is on the Tung Chung line and forms part of the new town of Olympian City, on land recently reclaimed for the Airport Express rail link in West Kowloon.
The Union Square development above Kowloon station, also on reclaimed land and part of the mass transit railway to Chek Lap Kok airport, includes 16 residential towers with nearly 6,000 apartments, with the largest standing at 82 storeys. Construction is in seven separate packages. At peak of construction, five Liebherr 245 EC-H cranes and two 200 EC-Hs were at work on the site. On the 240m-high Harbourside development at Union City, Hip Hing Construction had three 245 EC-H Liebherrs – supplied by Shriro – with a hook height of 250m and 65kW high-speed winches to achieve lifting speeds of 140m/min. But even this crane was dwarfed by the 264m hook height of a Liebherr 245 EC-H on the 256m-high Sorrento Tower I.
Speed of construction is always an issue in Hong Kong and so the fast-track Chun Wo project, which completed in early 2003, had 11 Liebherr 200 EC-H floor-climbing cranes to build 11 high rise blocks, standing 37 and 38 storeys high. A single stationary 154 EC-H crane was used for the associated commercial and car park complex. The need for speed demanded that a 65kW hoisting gear was used on this job too.
Elsewhere in Hong Kong, in prestigious Prince Edward Road West, another Liebherr 200 EC-H, with a 35m jib and lifting 12t at 18.6m, was rented out by Shriro for 12 months to contractor Ngo Kee for a 145m-high, 35-storey residential tower that was topped out in November.
By the end of the year Shriro Machinery, which also represents skid steer loader manufacturer Bobcat, among others, had moved into new offices on Java Road at Hong Kong’s North Point.
