Bell says, “We’ve sold two 50t Sany SCC500D crawlers, to Anderson Crane Hire and to BSG Civil Engineering in Northern Ireland.

“We were talking to Sany for nine months before signing up in May 2007 as their exclusive UK dealer. Initially, our main interest was in drilling rigs (piling equipment being our main business) but we saw synergies with crawlers. Although Sany manufacture a lot of other equipment, we’re focussing on just drilling rigs and crawlers.

“We already have various agency agreements with piling equipment manufacturers around the world: in Japan, Turkey, and the Netherlands, so we’re used to providing a full service. We’ll offer backup, aftersales service and spares.

“We’ll probably end up with one or two Sany crawlers in our own fleet as demonstration models, but we don’t want to compete with crane hire firms, our potential customers. We have another crawler on order, that we will use for demonstrations, if we don’t sell it before it arrives.

“We’ve looked at how they’ve got their CE certificates, and having sold a 50-tonner we have their certificate of compliance from TUV Rheinland which covers the 50t, 80t and 100t models. Sany cranes up to 250te are now CE-marked. We’ve visited their factory in China three times, and seen what they’re doing. CE compliance isn’t something that they’re just paying lip service to.”

Bell was cautiously optimistic about the UK market for the crawlers, citing waiting times as a key attraction for customers: “There’s a lot of enquires for 50t, 80t and 100t models. We wouldn’t buy larger units on stock, but we could supply them as required. There’s other firms like Fushun Excavator and Zoomlion, who might soon be entering the UK, so that could change the market conditions again.”