A place in the sun

Spain is enjoying the benefits of massive European Union funding and nothing characterises this more than the growth in construction output. Infrastructure projects account for the majority of this but the value of international work won by Spanish contractors, for example, has increased nearly 10 times in the last 10 years from E270m ($279m) to E2,434m ($2,512m). In 1998 the construction industry produced 119,000 new jobs in Spain – equivalent to one in four of the new jobs throughout the whole economy.

Crane sales are no exception to the general boom. The market for mobile and tower cranes is reckoned by some manufacturers to be the largest in Europe, and for loader cranes the third or fourth largest in Europe. Business is particularly good in the central region, in and around Madrid, and also in Mediterranean coastal areas such as Valencia, Alicante and Andalucía, particularly for hotel and holiday home construction. This was Liebherr’s busiest region in the country for its tower cranes last year with sales of 108 units. Not far behind though was the northern region with 94 units. Cataluña, with a population of 6m, and the Basque Country are busy areas.

Allotment of Spain’s Ministry of Public Works budget of E11.8bn ($13bn) is almost 90% focused on road, rail and housing construction. A further boost to this figure comes from increasing private sector funding. For the toll-road programme, the Ministry of Public Works has called for tenders to build 10 new road sections, totalling 441.5km. Cost is estimated at E1.54bn ($1,7bn) and work should be completed by 2002. Cranes are busy on public works projects such as the Madrid-Zaragoza-Barcelona-French border high speed rail link where they are needed to lift and place heavy prefabricated concrete components that will make up about 300 bridges and viaducts.

Tower crane sales continue to rise. Best selling models have 45m to 50m jib, 1t tip load and 2.5t maximum load. Comansa’s sales manager, Ralf Hagestedt, sees no signs of a let up in the market where, he claims, Comansa sells two or three cranes per day. There are signs though that things might flatten out slightly this year. Liebherr Industrias Metalicas’ marketing manager Tobias Böhler points out that while the tower crane market remains very good, interest rates are going up, housing construction is now exceeding demand and business is better in the south than the north. Liebherr reports sales of 480 tower cranes in Spain last year. Most popular was the 50/63 LC of which 266 units were sold. Liebherr’s larger, German-made top slewing towers are found in rental fleets but sales to end users are unusual. Last October however, a 200 EC-H was sold in Oviedo, capital of the Asturias region.

Loader cranes are enjoying particular success, for delivering construction materials. Even the smallest village has a building materials supply depot and each one needs at least one delivery truck equipped with a loader crane. Jaime Fortón Pueyo, marketing director at Partek Cargotec in Spain, says unit sales of Hiab cranes last year beat all forecasts and also broke the previously considered unbeatable record of 1989. Hiab sales so far this year are also good and Fortón expects a similar performance to last year.

Hiab, which has more than 50 dealers in Spain, claims a 32% share of the loader crane market there, with a similar share claimed by Palfinger, Hiab’s biggest European rival. The Italian manufacturers are grouped together in third place. Hans Mulder, whose company Mulder y Co. distributes Palfinger cranes in Spain through a network of about 30 dealers, claims sales of 1,659 units last year (including forestry models). He says the total annual loader crane market is usually around 3,000 units but for the last two years it has been as high as 4,500. Mulder claims: “We are selling more Palfinger knuckle boom cranes in Spain than anywhere else in the world.” As in the rest of Europe, the use of remote control is spreading – up to 40% of Palfinger sales in Spain now include remote control, he says.

In the last seven years larger loader cranes, of more than 20tm capacity, have become more popular, as have larger numbers of hydraulic extensions to give maximum outreach, according to both Fortón and Mulder. Mulder claims that Palfinger leads in heavy cranes (30tm plus) in Spain. Both Fortón and Mulder say that they are taking market share from stick boom types because these are not as versatile as a knuckle boom crane mounted on a truck, which also retains useful load capacity.

As with other crane types, government projects are where the work is for mobile cranes, and this has been for the last two years. Terex Lifting vice president Steve Filipov reports sales of 180 PPM mobile cranes last year and he expects a similar figure for this year. He says that this puts Terex as the clear leader in Spain’s mobile crane market.

Filipov estimates the total annual market for rubber tyred mobile cranes to be as high as 350 units, which is larger than the French market, he says. Figures from another major manufacturer are slightly more conservative. For cranes between 6t and 500t capacity, they show a dramatic jump from 69 units in 1997 to 216 in 1998. Sales for 1999 were looking even better with preliminary estimates showing sales on course to pass 250 units quite comfortably.

The 30t to 40t range is the most popular, with 100 units from this category sold in 1998, followed by the 50t to 60t range at 62 units. This is supported by Filipov who says that as many as 80 of the 1999 Terex total were 35t models.

Luna export manager Luis Mur concurs, saying that Luna’s 35 tonner is its best seller, and that only a couple of the largest model, the 120t AT-120/47, are sold each year in Spain. In the last five years figures show there have been only 42 mobile cranes sold with a capacity of 160t or greater.

Rental companies account for 80% of all-terrain sales, Mur says, but Luna also sells to the army and large construction companies. There are many small to medium sized rental houses in Spain, unlike the UK for example, where a few large companies dominate, and they work relatively locally, in a radius of about 200km, according to Mur, who puts Liebherr as Luna’s main competitor in Spain for mobile cranes. Both companies showed cranes at the SMOPyC exhibition in the colours of rental company Gruas Losfablos.

Production and exports

It is not only domestic consumption of construction equipment that is booming. Hiab’s Zaragoza factory which builds cranes of more than 20tm capacity for sale around the world, produced more than 1,000 units last year. The company has been manufacturing in Spain since the early 1960s. Liebherr’s Pamplona factory, which produces LC series towers and the SE series of fast erecting cranes both for Spain and international markets, exceeded its own forecasts last year by building 1,035 units. The projection for 2000 is 1,100 units. Liebherr has about 25 distributors in Spain and Portugal and established a new one in Andorra in January. About 80% of Comansa’s annual production at between 600 and 700 units is sold in the home market with exports concentrated in the USA, and to a lesser extent at the moment in Germany, due to depressed rental rates, Hagestedt says.

According to figures from the Spanish Association of Equipment Manufacturers for the Construction and Mining Industries (ANMOPyC), total production in Spain’s construction equipment industry between 1996 and 1998 increased by 8% to $650m. Of this figure $200m was exported, distributed as follows: 40% Europe; 35% Latin America; 9% Africa; 5% Asia; and other countries 11%. Within Europe, France, Germany and Portugal are the largest markets. Demand is stable at E600m ($619m) but business is increasing from the UK and Italy.

Spanish construction equipment sells well in South America and is claimed to be market leader in Chile, Argentina and Colombia. Venezuela is also important and ANMOPyC hopes that Brazil will soon become Spain’s largest export market. Construction contracting in South America began to boom in 1995, according to ANMOPyC. The dramatic fall in Asian business is to some extent being replaced by the US market, and Canada in particular, according to the Association of Spanish Construction Companies (SEOPAN).

On show

At ANMOPyC’s biennial construction equipment exhibition, SMOPyC, lifting and transport equipment made up the third largest section of exhibitors this year with 11% of the products shown. The show was held in Zaragoza in February. Of the 1,371 exhibitors, Spanish manufacturers numbered just less than half at 517, followed by Italy with 258 and Germany with 131. Exhibition area has increased rapidly from 29,074m2 in 1994 to 70,120m2 this year, up from 51,253m2 of the last SMOPyC show, in 1998. Visitors this year numbered 74,494, 21% more than the last show.

As well as domestic tower and mobile crane manufacturers there was good representation from abroad, particularly in the loader crane and mobile crane sectors (with Mannesmann Demag a notable absentee).

In February Liebherr Industrias Metalicas launched a new tower crane designed for the Spanish and southern European markets. The 90 LD has a maximum 50m jib, 1.1t tip load and hook heights up to 43.5m. It features a new, 1.2m tower design of totally enclosed hollow sections and a different connection system, instead of the 1.8m sections of the LC series. This allows more economical transport because two sections can be carried side by side on a truck. A 3.8m cruciform base instead of the LC’s 4.5m base also makes transport easier and occupies less ground area which is important on jobsites where space is at a premium. It uses the same motors as the 100 LC and can also be used with LC and HC series tower sections.

Among the cranes on show, self erecting models included Liebherr 26 K, Comansa HT 25, Potain HD 11 and HD 14C, three San Marco models and two each from Gru Dalbe, Benazzato, Saez and Cattaneo (Arlan). Top slewing towers included Liebherr’s new 90 LD, a 63 LC and a 30 LC; Portuguese manufacturer Soima’s SGT 85 and SGT City; Jaso’s J47NS, J52NS and J300DR; Comansa’s LC 1060 and LC 5013; a Potain MC 45A (Ibergruas) and one each from Pingon and Saez.

ATs on show included Luna’s new AT-35/32 and two AT-50/40s; Liebherr’s LTM 1060/2 and 1080/1; Grove’s GMK 5180, 2035 and 3050; and Terex distributor Ibergruas showed several two- and three-axle PPM cranes and Terex Aerials. Other exhibits included a Liebherr 833 crawler and a Luna crane mounted on a Mercedes Actros 3335 chassis.