Peruvian crane service provider San Lorenzo used its brand-new Tadano CC 38.650-1 lattice boom crawler crane to set up a 247-tonne conveyor belt section at the Cerro Verde copper mine in Peru.
As it was San Lorenzo’s first time setting up and using the crane a four-person team from Tadano travelled to Peru to train San Lorenzo in how to do this.
“The reason we decided on the extremely versatile CC 38.650-1 for this gruelling job was the fact that it’s an incredibly powerful and rugged machine that can handle the kind of conditions you find at this type of mine day in, day out,” said Tadano technical training instructor Sönke Eichhorn. “Those conditions entail a lot of wear, so it was good to have the Peruvian TÜV office confirm it by approving the Tadano CC 38.650-1 for unlimited use at all mines in South America. And then you have the fact that the crane’s design is cleverly and systematically optimised for transportation, so it was relatively easy to bring the unit to what ultimately was a work site that is normally difficult to access.”
The crane was set up at the mine with an SSL_1 configuration including an 84-metre main boom, Vario-SL system, ramshorn hook block, 225 tonnes of counterweight, and 245 tonnes of Superlift counterweight. Usually this only takes a few days but as the Tadano team was training San Lorenzo it took six weeks.
Prior to the setup and training the lattice boom crawler had been shipped from Germany to Peru. Once at the Port of Callao, in Lima, it was taken to San Lorenzo’s premises in Arequipa and from there transported by a total of 28 trucks to the Cerro Verde mine at an altitude of 2700 metres.
The Tadano training team had to attend a hospital operated by the Cerro Verde mine operator to have a medical examination to ensure they were in good enough physical shape for the strenuous work in the harsh environment.
Once the team was cleared heath-wise it started setting up the lattice boom crawler using a Tadano AC 5.220-1 as an auxiliary crane. The all-terrain drove to the mine under its own steam.
Once fully assembled, the CC 38.650-1 placed the first 80-metre-long, 247-tonne section of the conveyor belt on two previously erected supports. The procedure will be repeated numerous times until the conveyor belt has been fully assembled with its complete length of 900 metres, reaching the bottom of the mine. The CC 38.650-1 is expected to remain on site for around the next five years.
