Cranes in Motion
By Seth Skydel
Breaking Hard Ground
Two dredging companies are performing large scale projects 350 miles apart off the Gulf of Mexico with Liebherr HS 8300 duty cycle crawler cranes
Every jobsite comes with its own set of needs, and some have unique challenges as well. In Port Arthur, Texas, and 350 miles away in Mobile, Alabama— on two sites off the Gulf of Mexico— two companies are facing common requirements and addressing some of the same issues by meeting them in similar ways.
At the Texas location, where new construction off an existing dock at the Port of Port Arthur is underway, Matthews Brothers Dredging is removing over 5,000 yards of hard clay, sand and debris per day in a 46-foot-deep basin. The specialty marine services company based out of Pass Christian, Mississippi is also tasked with meeting a strict deadline while the Port continues to operate.
At the Alabama location, the Dutra Group is at work on a deepening project at a U. S. Army Corps of Engineers( USACE) site. The California-based company is dredging at a depth of 54 feet to help deepen nine miles of the Mobile channel.
What both companies also have in common is the need for machines that can handle strenuous work over long periods of time. At the Port Arthur jobsite, for example, equipment is running 20 hours a day.
Common Solution
For Matthews and Dutra, the solution has been a Liebherr HS 8300 duty cycle crawler crane equipped with a 1,000-HP Tier 4 Final engine. The machine, one of the largest duty cycle cranes in the world, is capable of over 4 million cycles and is designed for an extended service life.
“ The overall impression shared throughout our company is how simple the HS
8300 is to use, allowing us to work faster, have higher productivity and meet the deadline of the customer,” said Matthews Brothers dredge captain, Alex Kellams.“ Using the HS 8300 allows us to get in and out quicker and provides for a smoother dredging operation.”
To further increase productivity, Matthews Brothers is using the Liebherr Pactronic hybrid drive on the HS 8300. The system stores energy in an accumulator and transfers it as needed to provide approximately 1,500 HP to assist the duty cycle crane’ s 154,000-pound signal line pole winches.
Pactronic enhances the handling performance of the crane, Kellams noted.“ It is much faster and allows us to move twice as fast resulting in quicker load and cycle times as well as promoting fuel efficiency,” he said.
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August 2025 • www. cranehotline. com