The order, placed in 2007, includes some power packs. It will be delivered in 2008 and 2009, Mammoet said.

Mammoet will use the extra lines to expand the fleet, and is not planning to use them for any particular job.

It will receive 592 lines from Scheuerle and 50 from Kamag, said Bernd Schwengsbier, president of parent company Transporter Industry International sales. TII convinced Mammoet to switch 50 lines to Kamag because of production bottlenecks at Scheuerle.

He said that Scheuerle has a two-year waiting list for new SPMTs, despite having tripled capacity to more than 1,200 lines per year.

Fabricators can save money by assembling larger and larger units. Last year, Sarens’ Norwegian subsidiary Transrig assembled 452 SPMT axle lines to lift a single 10,000t offshore platform topsides.