Four years after Montecon commissioned the Liebherr Group to design and build two mobile cranes capable of reaching 21 rows of containers, a machine never before seen in port logistics, the project has come to fruition. The company celebrated the important investment by naming the machines together with the Presidents of the Liebherr Group's Maritime Crane Division, Isolde Liebherr and Patricia Rüf, who travelled to lead the event.

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The units, whose height of 57.4 meters is similar to that of a 20-story building, were developed at Montecon's request to overcome the obstacle of not being able to have gantry cranes capable of meeting the requirements of large ships, since the National Port Administration (ANP) has not authorized their implementation in the public areas of the port of Montevideo.

In this sense, Juan Olascoaga, Montecon's general manager, indicated that the decision to build the largest mobile cranes in the world arose from the need to face the "restrictions" posed, even though the new units do not reach the productivity of the gantry cranes, which have a greater range and are indispensable to meet the requirements of foreign trade.

According to Olascoaga, the investment was made "because it is our business, and we do not want to diminish the importance of this aspect, but also because we have assumed as a fundamental strategic direction that the port of Montevideo is the only deep water port in Uruguay and in this region, with a future full of possibilities".

He emphasized that the cranes are operational and are a reality "thanks to the expertise of the Liebherr firm and its commitment to its customers, and thanks to our stubbornness, to be able to dream and not resign ourselves, and to our permanent commitment to the port of Montevideo".

Olascoaga highlighted the need to incorporate new technologies and continue betting on competition and growth, since a port monopoly would be "harmful". In that sense, he expressed that these cranes "are a step, but we will continue to dialogue, to talk about incorporating gantry cranes in the public docks of the port, because we cannot stay behind other ports in the region. We must accept the challenge and position ourselves to also compete at the international and regional level.

Finally, the executive highlighted the importance that the entire port system has for the development of the country, citing as an example the government's plans to reactivate activity in Juan Lacaze. "Based on our experience that public and private collaboration can be developed with ample benefits for both parties, we believe that we can contribute ideas, education and training for the process of reactivating your port and continue to develop the activity on a national level", he concluded.

The recently christened mobile cranes were built in the German town of Rostock and left for Uruguay in July 2016 to be assembled in Uruguay. They are of the LHM 800 type, allow working with more than 40 meters of vision, have a lifting and lowering speed of containers of up to 120 meters per minute and are capable of processing up to 20 units per hour.