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Townsville steps up in capacity
TOWNSVILLE STEPS UP IN CAPACITY WITH NEW TADANO DEMAG
Townsville Cranes recently took delivery of a new Tadano Demag AC 300-6. In terms of capacity, it a is a big step up for the family owned and run business. General manager, Sam Millar explains more about the 300t capacity all terrain and the reasons behind its purchase.
ALTHOUGH TOWNSVILLE CRANES HAS
been operating for 16 years, it was started as a secondary business by Sam’s father. He had already started NQ Mining Services which was focused on civil construction works in and around the mining sector of North Queensland.
“NQ Mining Services was started by my father 16 years ago. He was focused on civil construction in the North Queensland mining sector. He was successful in building vent shafts and securing other types of civil construction projects in the sector. Rather than continuing to hire in cranes, he decided to create a crane business to service the lifting requirements for NQ Mining Services,” said Millar.
Wayne bought Townsville Cranes in 2016. But like all good plans, they changed as the crane business became busy very quickly. Townsville Cranes now runs as a general hire business out of Townsville and works right across North Queensland. Sam explains why the plans changed.
“The crane side of the business got busy very quickly and the focus moved from civil construction and mining to cranes and lifting. As a business, our
focus is now general crane hire,” he said.
Millar is the general manager of Townsville Cranes and he has been with the business for 18 months. It’s a family owned and run business and Sam acknowledges the management team and the ‘front line’ crews are behind the success of the business.
“I work with Leonard Carlson who is the Allocations Manager. Leonard keeps all the cranes utilised and he is the key to the company. My business philosophy is realistic, I understand that we might keep the wheels of the business turning here in the office, but it is the crews we have operating our cranes with the riggers and dogmen who are the essential elements of our business.
“I don’t pretend to sit as the ‘head of the company’; because I’m not. Without our team of people, we wouldn’t have a company or a business. We are extremely fortunate that our team is focused on the wellbeing of the business, and they are the reason why Townsville Cranes is successful,” said Millar.
“The experience in the team varies. We have members who have been with the business for over a decade, and they include operators, dogmen and riggers who have been in the industry for a long time.
“We are also bringing in some younger team members and upskilling them. Being a general crane hire business, our team appreciates being locally based and not having to work away for long periods of time,” he said.
Millar goes on to discuss the local Townsville economy and confirms the various industries the business is servicing.
“The local economy is amazing right now. Even, throughout the COVID pandemic we haven’t seen a downturn in business at all. There has been a degree of uncertainty particularly around construction, including civil and mining but we support some very large local businesses including Ravenswood Gold, which is a major partner of ours.
“My father was part of the construction team when the mine first kicked off and he conducted a lot of shut down works there and now we find ourselves providing general crane hire. Wilmar Sugar is also a partner, and we work in their sugar mills along the East Coast. We also work for Pajingo Gold along with a number of local builders. The building, construction (including civil), mining and refinery sectors would
be responsible for the bulk of our work,” he said.
Sam’s father started the business with Liebherr LTM 1080 80t capacity all terrain and this crane still operates in the fleet today. He then purchased a 220t capacity Liebherr which was to help with the construction and civil works. From these early cranes it has been onwards and upwards and Townsville Cranes now has 21 cranes in the fleet.
“The fleet is reflective of the industry and how busy Townsville and the surrounding areas are. We’ve also bought a new 100t Liebherr which arrives in December as well as another two 25t Frannas, one arrives in October and the second in February of next year,” said Millar.
“We run semis, body trucks and we take care of all our transport requirements as well and so we run a fairly large fleet of vehicles and plant. The purchase of the new cranes is indicative of where North Queensland and Townsville are going in our opinion. There’s a lot of investment throughout the region and there’s a lot of work in the pipeline for the next three to four years,” he said.
Millar confirms the reasoning behind the purchase of the Tadano Demag 300T.
“The 300T is an amazing crane, but a key factor in the decision-making process is the excellent sales support and back up we receive from Tadano. Our decision also came down to the delivery schedule. We looked at both Tadano Demag and Liebherr and we realised we could get the Tadano Demag much quicker.
“The reasons for purchasing a 300t capacity crane are based on the work we can see in the pipeline for the Townsville region. Townsville and North Queensland is expanding, the infrastructure projects are getting bigger, we are building bigger bridges, bigger refineries and mines and there is a lot of investment in the region.
“Our 220t capacity crane was our previous biggest lifter. We weren’t going to replace this with a new 220t machine, we knew we needed to go to the next step and move with the demands from the region,” he said.
“Extra capacity is going to be required throughout the region. Mines are getting bigger with larger types of equipment operating in them. Refineries are requiring replacement work and we are seeing construction projects being planned around cranes.
“If they can put a 300t capacity crane in a project, the amount of smaller lifts is greatly reduced. Civil and construction jobs are being planned around the cranes which are locally available and in the area. In the past, large capacity cranes were moved out of South-East Queensland, New South Wales or even the Northern Territory for these projects.
“Refineries, mine sites and sugar mills have been engaging heavy crawler cranes and equipment out of Southeast Queensland and we wanted to put a big mobile slew crane in Townsville to support these guys, help reduce their costs of moving this equipment and keep the money in the region. We are locally owned and locally operated. All of
Tadano’s delivery schedules are a key reason Townsville Cranes purchased the 300t.
our teams are from Townsville and are residents of Townsville. We would like to keep the business and the money in the region and putting a big crane into the region should help this,” said Millar.
Millar discusses the performance of the team at Tadano Demag and confirms he was impressed with their ability to have stock in the country which provided the shortened lead times.
“Jason Perry is our key contact at Tadano. He helped us with pervious sales which include the 13t city crane, the 20t city crane and the AC 130-5, our 130t mobile slew crane. Jason made the purchase of the 300T extremely easy for us.
“Tadano also has a huge parts interpreter team which includes Joe Arena, the national product support manager. Joe helps to make Tadano’s after sales support exceptional. They keep a huge range of parts in the Brisbane facility and in other depots around Australia. The Tadano team is extremely easy to deal with and they have guys who are based just down the road if required.
“Tadano’s delivery schedules are well ahead of other crane OEMs because they are bringing cranes into the country and selling them once they are here. And that’s a key reason for us ending up with the 300T.
Following delivery the crane went straight to work and Sam and his team were impressed with its performance.
“We sent it straight out to lift some locomotive unloads for The LCR Group. We were lucky to have Len Gillespie mentor us through some of these unloads up in Townsville. Its second job is for Glencore where it will be working on a tipper unload and that will be the heaviest lift for the crane so far. When it finishes that shut down work, we head north where we are lifting in 84t girders for BMD for the Northern Access project in Townsville.
“We are also working closely with customers like Wilmar and Ravenwood Gold for potential work there as well. Already we can see the crane is going to be a well utilised asset,” said Millar.
Sam goes on to discuss the mix of
the Townsville Cranes fleet and what determines the type of cranes they purchase and the brands.
“We are very loyal to the brands we purchase, and these include Tadano, Liebherr and Terex Franna. All three have been amazing for the business and we really only run these brands. We like to keep things consistent with our all terrains and we have a number of Terex Frannas for the multi-purpose work for which they are ideally suited.
“Tadano, Liebherr and Terex provide excellent after sales support and parts interpreters.
This is critical when you are running so many cranes. We want the best utilisation from our assets, and we want the cranes to perform at optimum levels. For this to happen we need to be sure we will receive the right levels of support and back up from the crane OEM,” he said.
