The Marcellus shale gas wells have been very good to Allegheny Crane Rental.
According to Allegheny Crane Rental President Kyrk Pyros, the company’s business is up 65 percent since 2009 and its fleet size has nearly tripled in the past year and a half.
Pyros started his first business, KP Builders, in 1989. The company acquired Allegheny Crane Rental eight years ago when the previous owner decided it was time to retire. At the time, Allegheny Crane Rental, established in 1973, was a two-crane operation that had done work for KP Builders. Allegheny Crane Rental has since grown to 29 employees and a fleet of nine 50 ton (45 t) and 90 ton (81.6 t) Link-Belt cranes, as well as two small spider cranes and various trucks and trailers. The company currently has three locations located in Pittsburgh, Gibsonia and Liberty, Pa.
Pyros bought his first Link-Belt five years ago and has been a fan ever since. He said he was impressed with the instinctive operation of the Link-Belt cranes, adding that Link-Belt’s piston pumps provide a smoother operation than gear pumps.
Additionally, Pyros feels that as a manufacturer, Link-Belt demonstrated a good deal of flexibility in working with Allegheny Crane Rental to deliver a crane that fit its unique needs, adding that Link-Belt constantly strives to find ways to improve its technologies.
An added appeal for Pyros was the fact that the cranes are manufactured in the United States — in fact, both Link-Belt, and Pyros’s local dealer, Rudd Equipment Company, are based in Kentucky.
Allegheny’s purchases include HTC 8650, HTC 8660 and HTT 8690 hydraulic truck cranes and an ATC3200 all terrain crane.
Kyrk also has enjoyed a good working relationship with his Link-Belt dealer, Rudd Equipment Company. According to him, “when the dealer works as an extension of your company, you can’t ask for a better arrangement than that.”
Service is extremely important to Allegheny Crane Rental.
“Gas extraction companies have been great to work with but, with them, downtime is not an option,” Pyros said.
Consequently, Allegheny Crane Rental employs two technicians to work closely with Rudd Equipment Company’s two crane service specialists. To complement the arrangement, Pyros uses Link-Belt’s online preferred owner program.
Available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the program provides access to technical manuals, a 3D Lift Plan program for use as an aid in planning lifts, and a ground bearing pressure calculator program.
Allegheny Crane Rental focuses on the production side of the operation at gas wells, taking the rigs apart and putting them back together as well as positioning and holding coil tubes in place during the extraction process. Pyros has spent a lot of time on the well sites, studying ways to improve their service while making the operation both safer and faster, he said.
The majority of Allegheny Crane Rental’s gas well work is being conducted in Pennsylvania and West Virginia but the company also had business in New York and Maryland and, as a result of the relationships it has developed with the gas companies, it is sending three cranes to work in North Dakota.
Along with its gas well business, Allegheny Crane Rental also does a lot of work setting commercial HVAC units. Pyros explained that the Link-Belts are designed for long reach so they’re particularly good for that type of work.
With Allegheny Crane Rental’s growth and future plans, balancing safety and its customers’ needs is top priority. All of its operators are NCCCO-certified. Licensed in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Maryland, New Jersey and New York, Allegheny Crane Rental is a five-year member of SCRA and ASA and members of POGAM / PIOGA. CEG
This story also appears on Crane Equipment Guide.
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