After a 14,000 km voyage, the first Russian crane arrives in India

The first crane of Russian origin has been delivered to India, carried by ship from Saint Petersburg in a 14,000-km voyage that lasted for more than 20 days.

Ibis will be the first Russian-made gantry crane in India and is bound for the Cochin Shipyard where the further installation of parts, acceptance tests and subsequent commissioning – scheduled for the second quarter of 2023 – will be done.

It was in 2020 that the SMM Group, which holds a leading position in the segment of gantry cranes and makes a significant contribution to the development of the Russian market of heavy lifting equipment, won a tender for the supply of a single-boom portal crane with a lifting capacity of up to 10 tonnes and boom reach of up to 45 metres.

According to the Russian company, the gauge of the portal is 9 meters as per the requirement made by India.

The loading of parts of the Ibis single-jib gantry crane began at the port of Saint Petersburg – the European gateway of the country and the most important transport link between the East and the West – on December 12.

The vessel was loaded with seven containers and 33 packages, two of which exceeded 25 metres in length.

The crane is designed to perform installation operations in the construction of ships: sectional installation, assembly work, as well as equipment installation and movement piece cargo.

The SMM Group says that it plans to actively increase the volume of deliveries of heavy lifting equipment in India this year, as well as strengthen its position in the South Asian market.

As reported by IndiaNarrative.com before, both India and Russia have been batting for the speedy launch of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) to improve the transport and logistics architecture of the Eurasian region.

Last year, at the Caspian Summit in Ashgabat, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke in detail about the 7,200 km-long, multimodal trade corridor which will start from Mumbai, with nodes in West Asia, Central Asia, Caucasia and Russia covering large swathes of territory in landlocked Eurasia.

“The speedy launch of this corridor is intended to be facilitated by the agreement between the Caspian states on cooperation in the field of transport, which came into force last year, which is aimed at turning the Caspian Sea region into a major international logistics hub,” said Putin.

The Caspian Five has acknowledged the huge significance of the large-scale project which would eventually link the far-west Russian city Saint Petersburg to the ports of Iran and India.

India has been pushing extensively for the utilization of Chabahar port in Iran and its inclusion in the INSTC framework.

Considering its geographical location and suitable infrastructure, experts reckon that the corridor provides a great option to replace the Suez Canal with a massive reduction in travel time and eventually savings.

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