Tadano CC 38.650-1 Crane Tackles Extreme Conditions at Peru’s Cerro Verde Copper Mine
The Tadano team handled the setup, commissioning, and handover of the new crane, while also conducting operator training for San Lorenzo’s crew.
“The reason we chose the versatile CC 38.650-1 for this demanding project is its exceptional power, durability, and reliability under extreme mining conditions,” said Sönke Eichhorn, Technical Training Instructor at Tadano, who travelled from Zweibrücken, Germany, to oversee the operation.
The CC 38.650-1 has been officially approved for unlimited use at all South American mines by the Peruvian TÜV office, reaffirming its suitability for rugged environments. Designed with optimized transport logistics, the crane was efficiently delivered and assembled at the remote, high-altitude site, demonstrating Tadano’s capability to perform under the most challenging terrain and weather conditions.
His mission, as well as that of his Tadano co-workers Domagoj Bozic, Jair Solís, and Leandro Henrique Ribeiro Oliveira, was to ensure that the crane would be fully set up at the mine with an SSL_1 configuration including an 84-meter main boom, Vario-SL system, ramshorn hook block, 225 tonnes of counterweight, and 245 tonnes of Superlift counterweight within six weeks. “As we all know, setting up the CC 38.650-1 usually takes just a few days. However, we used the job as an opportunity to set up the crane together with the customer’s personnel – the first time they’d be doing it, in fact – and provide training for the San Lorenzo team and our employees throughout the whole process,” Sönke Eichhorn says when explaining why the setup time was so unusually long.
Health check and safety briefing for the team
Before all that could happen, however, the crane had to be shipped from Germany to Peru. Once at the Port of Callao in Lima, it was taken to San Lorenzo’s premises in Arequipa first, and from there resumed its journey with a total of 28 trucks to the Cerro Verde mine at an altitude of 2700 meters. Unlike the crane though, the Tadano team first had a layover at the hospital operated by the Cerro Verde mine operator. “We had to have a medical examination there just to make sure that we were healthy and in good enough physical shape for the strenuous work that awaited us in that harsh environment,” Sönke Eichhorn reports. Once everyone had been cleared, the team was briefed on the various work, health and safety rules for the mine at the Cerro Verde training center. “The work there is obviously not without its dangers, so the rules were pretty strict,” explains Sönke Eichhorn, who found the work site to be extremely loud, dusty, and harsh in general – a real test of strength for man and machine, he adds.
Smooth setup
Despite the adverse surroundings, the team was able to set up the crane for the first time on schedule while providing all the planned training, so that the assembly process for the conveyor belt was able to start as expected. A Tadano AC 5.220-1 was deployed as an auxiliary crane to assist in the assembly of the CC 38.650-1. It had been driven to the mine all by its own and that was able to handle the extreme conditions on site just as well as the crawler crane. Once fully assembled, the CC 38.650-1 placed the first 80-meter-long, 247-tonne section of the conveyor belt on two previously erected supports. The procedure will be repeated numerous times until the conveyor belt has been fully assembled with its complete length of 900 meters and reached the bottom of the mine.
Effusive words of praise for Tadano
Although the Tadano team has been back home for quite a while now, the CC 38.650-1 will be staying at the mine for another five years. “We have more than enough work for it,” assures San Lorenzo Service Manager Victor Condori, who had effusive words of praise for the Tadano instructor team: “We’re tremendously grateful that Sönke and his colleagues went all in to help us set up the CC 38.650-1 for the first time ever despite the tough conditions at our mine. We worked together incredibly smoothly, and to tell you the truth, the training they provided was simply perfect,” he says on behalf the entire San Lorenzo team.
Published on:
30 October 2025
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