The world’s largest hydraulic crane started to work at Vuosaari Harbour, Helsinki, Finland

A new era for Vuosaari Harbour in Helsinki began in December 2017, when the world’s largest hydraulic crane, the Mantsinen 300, started operation there. The buyer of the crane, which weighs 373 tons and has a reach of 36 metres, is the logistics company Adolf Lahti Yxpila Ab, which is part of the KWH Group. The crane will be used in Vuosaari by Adolf Lahti’s affiliate, Oy M. Rauanheimo Ab.

The first major pulp shipment left Vuosaari in December 2017. The pulps are delivered to Vuosaari Harbour from Äänekoski, central Finland, by rail; the fully-loaded cargo train had 22 carriages. The estimated annual amount of cargo handled by the crane is about 800,000 tonnes.

“This project will increase our volume of freight traffic by about ten percent, which will really put the Mantsinen 300 to the test,” says Port of Helsinki Ltd CEO Kimmo Mäki.

According Rauanheimo area sales manager Niko Orpana and Adolf Lahti operative director Niko Miettinen, the Mantsinen 300 takes work efficiency at the port to an entirely new level. The Mantsinen 300 can efficiently load six pulp bundles at a time into ships of 40,000 DWT.

Orpana and Miettinen have faith in the Mantsinen 300 crane. In their view, among the benefits of the crane, in addition to efficiency, are speed, good handling, and the HybriLift® system, which provides as much as half of the energy needed for the work through an innovative energy recovery system.

“With Mantsinen we made a conscious decision to invest resources in top class technology. It’ll be interesting to see how much this saves on costs compared to traditional, counterweighted tower cranes,” Miettinen says.

The Mantsinen 300 has gained a strong foothold on international markets as well. Earlier this year, two Mantsinen cranes similar to the one in Vuosaari were put into operation in Belgium, at the Port of Antwerp and the Port of Ghent. According to Mantsinen Group’s vice president of the material handling division Tapio Pirinen, the Mantsinen 300 is the future of cargo handling.

“The possibilities offered by the Mantsinen 300 will transform how companies in the logistics sector think and operate. This is especially so when it comes to Handysize and Panamax vessels. So we’re actually leading the renewal of the entire field.

According to Kimmo Mäki, the Mantsinen 300 further enhances the international standing of Vuosaari Harbour, and creates opportunities to serve an extensive range of needs.

“I’m confident that this will lead to excellent growth in traffic volumes over the coming years,” Niko Miettinen says.
“Mantsinen Group certainly deserves full praise for holding its own so impressively against the giant international firms. This innovative company from eastern Finland is still the only operator capable of manufacturing such a monster machine,” says Niko Miettinen.

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