Kobelco launches Indian crawler at Excon
24 November 2011Japanese crane manufacturer Kobelco has announced that its Indian manufacturing facility, under construction in Andhra Pradesh, will produce Kobelco’s first 100t crawler line made for the Indian market in early 2012.
At the five-day Excon 2011 exhibition, held in Bangalore, India, Kobelco showcased the 100t CKL1000i crawler crane after a traditional Indian handover ceremony, where Eastman Logistics and Infrastructure took delivery of the first model to hit Indian soil
Eastman Logistics and Infrastructure say the crane’s first job is likely to be on the site of a steel plant or a metro construction site.
Kobelco’s new crane, along with a handover ceremony that featured chanting and a puja from an Indian priest, attracted some interest from the expected 30,000 visitors to what is regarded as South India’s largest construction equipment-focused exhibition.
Since earlier this year, the firm has been constructing a new manufacturing plant for Kobelco Cranes in Sri City, 75km north of Chennai, which is expected to begin trial operations before the end of this month.
Once full-scale production begins at the plant in early 2012, the CKL1000i will be among the first cranes to roll off the 6,900m2 facility’s production line.
With growing demand for crawler cranes in India, thanks to the country’s growing economic power and large-scale government investment in transport infrastructure and in the power generation sector, Kobelco is confident of gaining a good share of this market, as it outlined in the company’s 2010 financial report.
