AS 21 G 3 VE -73 S G LA h# t N I o U Bo O Y ll, a E H SE ld o G
Volume 8 Issue 2
MARCH/APRIL 2017 $5.00
CONEXPO PRE VIE W
FORECAST
Last call for ConExpo
Pipeline decisions garner praise from Canada’s heavy-lift leaders
eaders of this magazine attending the ConExpo-Con/Agg heavy equipment trade show in Las Vegas this March are invited to drop by Crane & Hoist Canada’s booth at the triennial exhibition. This will mark the magazine’s third appearance at the show, and the second time it has its own booth at the event, which takes place March 7-11 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. This time around, Crane & Hoist Canada will occupy booth G73321 in the convention center’s Gold Hall, with editor Keith Norbury, sales manager Jeremy Thain, and art director James Lewis alternating shifts. Just look for the Canadian flags. We’ll be looking closely at show badges as well. So don’t be surprised if one of us yells, “Canada!” when we spot a visitor from Alberta, Ontario, the Yukon, or any of the other provinces and territories. At the 2014 show, we convinced dozens of Canucks to have their photos taken at the booth. So be prepared to smile.
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Check out our ConExpo Preview Pages 14-20
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UNCOMMON LIFTS
Whale of a tale W
M AT T J O N E S
Rare whale species lifted from New Brunswick waterfront
A 50-tonne NRC 4500 wrecker from Mundle’s Service Ltd. carries whale remains away. Photo courtesy of Mundle’s Service Ltd.
hen the remains of a rare Sowerby’s beaked whale were found on a New Brunswick shoreline in June 2016, authorities deemed it worthy of further study. But they needed some heavy equipment to enable that. So Department of Fisheries and Oceans officials hired Mundle’s Service Ltd. to lift the carcass from the water. “DFO had a whale down on the beach here in Campbellton,” said Scott Furlotte, towing truck operator with Mundle’s Service. “They pulled it over to the wharf in Restigouche and got us to lift it out of the water and put it on a trailer.” Furlotte says that DFO directed him on how to lift the whale, of a species normally found in deep waters, in order to protect the specimen as much as possible. “They told us where to hook up to it and what to do with it,” Furlotte recalled. “We had to use wide straps just so it wouldn’t split in two. continued on page 5
Industry insiders weigh in on what various pipeline ventures, such as Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain project, will mean for their sector
Photo courtesy of Prairie Crane Inc.
KEITH NORBURY
A 270-tonne Liebherr LTM 1220-5.2 all-terrain crane supplied by Prairie Crane works at an oil and gas refinery in Saskatchewan, where modifications were underway.
S AU L C H E R N O S
f the new oil pipelines the Trudeau government approved in November are actually built, cranes will play a supporting rather than a leading role and will benefit from increased economic activity, industry players say. In Western Canada, in particular, the heavy equipment sector has felt the effects of a slumping oil sector. John Stevens, president and CEO of Entrec Corporation, an Acheson, Alta.-based supplier of cranes and related services, says he’s hopeful the decisions could begin to turn things around. “Cranes aren’t used a lot on pipelines, but they’re used to support the construction of compressor stations and that type of thing,” Stevens says. Acheson, an Edmonton suburb, isn’t far from the oilsands, where Stevens has seen considerable growth during the last decade or so. However, Alberta and other oil-dependent regions have experienced a massive slowdown thanks to slumping oil prices.
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