In this month’s issue of PMV Middle East, Sharbel Kordahi, managing director for Terex Middle East, highlights the ongoing appetite for ever larger aerial work platforms (AWP) and telehandler models in the region, driven by the construction and oil and gas segments.
Kordahi explains: “It is still predominantly a construction and oil and gas industry for AWP — so while we are always excited about new and/or smaller products, the biggest impact we see is with bigger products and bigger booms.”
Catering to this segment, Genie’s recently launched the SX-150 Super Boom, filling a gap in Genie’s pre-existing range between the larger SX-180 and the smaller SX-125, complete with a software allowing rental companies to restrict its working height (to match different rental price points).
Kordahi comments: “Previously there was a big gap between the SX-125 and SX-180 — from a price perspective at least a 40% gap between the two models — so it made sense to bring in the SX-150. There is definitely a market for both, particularly within oil and gas industry.”
The region is also predominantly a high-reach market in telehandlers, with Genie’s GTH-4014 and GTH-4018 emerging as its stellar product over recent years.
More recently, Kordahi highlights, “what we now see is the region becoming more excited about telehandlers that are rotators, which become more like mini-cranes — so there is a big push towards the GTH-5021 machines, which are again geared towards the construction sector.”
The GTH-5021 R rotator telehandler can equip a range of mini-attachments, including forks, winches and man baskets, which in Terex AWP’s case are EN 280-certified, where the operator in the basket has the main controls.
Telehandlers and AWPs still have distinct uses, however, and Kordahi adds: “The main idea behind having a man basket is to make the telehandler more flexible on site — so instead of having a customer waiting for an AWP machine to come on site for a two-hour job, he can just equip his man basket and do the job.”
For the full feature, click here.
