One Order, Fifteen Cranes: Grúas Aguilar Bets Its Growth on a Single Supplier

The Spanish lifting contractor has committed to a fleet expansion led by an 800-tonne crawler crane, and roughly nine out of ten machines it operates now carry one badge

Fleet renewal in the lifting business rarely happens fifteen machines at a time. Grúas Aguilar has just done exactly that, signing an order with Liebherr that spans everything from a 60-tonne three-axle mobile crane to an 800-tonne crawler. Two of the headline units, the LR 1800-1.0 and the LTM 1400-6.1, have already been delivered and put to work. The rest arrive in stages through the first quarter of 2027.

The scale of the order says something about where the Spanish lifting market is heading. Grúas Aguilar operates from Madrid, Barcelona, Mallorca and Tarragona, and takes on projects in France and Morocco as well. Its work spans infrastructure and building construction, energy and cement, steel, chemicals and the environmental sector, a spread that demands both reach at the top of the capacity range and volume in the middle of it. Committing to a multi-year delivery schedule is a bet that the pipeline holds.

What is in the order

The flagship is the LR 1800-1.0, an 800-tonne crawler crane and now the most powerful machine Grúas Aguilar owns. It is built as a heavy industrial crane, designed to work with a luffing jib and derrick system in industrial plants, power station construction and petrochemicals, and it is equally at home erecting wind turbines and servicing wind farms.

Alongside it sits the LTM 1400-6.1, a six-axle mobile crane with a maximum lifting capacity of 450 tonnes and the first of its type delivered in Spain. The order also covers an LTM 1300-6.4 with a 90-metre telescopic boom and the LICCON3 control system, plus several LTM 1060-3.1, LTM 1090-4.3 and LTM 1100-5.3 mobile cranes and an MK 140-5.1E mobile construction crane.

The LR 1800-1.0 has already earned its keep. Its first assignment for the company was in Madrid, assisting with the installation of the Mayrit tunnel boring machine for the extension of Metro Line 11, one of the capital’s larger current infrastructure projects.

Why a single supplier

Around 90 per cent of Grúas Aguilar’s mobile and crawler crane fleet now comes from Liebherr. That concentration is a deliberate operating choice rather than an accident of procurement, and for a contractor running crews across four Spanish sites and three countries it carries practical weight: operators move between machines without relearning the controls, spare parts inventories stay narrower, and service scheduling runs through one relationship instead of several.

“Liebherr, and in particular Liebherr Ibérica, our direct local contact, are far more than just a supplier to us,” said Luis Aguilar, owner of the Aguilar Group. “A partnership based on trust has developed over many years. Today, almost 90 per cent of our mobile and crawler crane fleet comes from Liebherr. The decisive factors here are the reliability of the machines, the high quality of service and the continuous technological development of the products.”

The relationship goes back to 1988, the year Liebherr Ibérica was founded. “Grúas Aguilar’s confidence in our products and services is a special tribute to our decades-long collaboration,” said Tobias Böhler, Managing Director of Liebherr Ibérica. “We look forward to continuing to support Grúas Aguilar in modernising its fleet and successfully implementing challenging projects.”

What it signals for the market

For contractors and rental firms watching Spanish capacity, the read is straightforward. A company founded in 1968 does not order fifteen cranes, including an 800-tonne crawler configured for wind and petrochemical work, unless it expects that work to be there. The presence of the LR 1800-1.0 in particular points at wind farm construction and maintenance, a segment where Spanish demand has been steady and where crawler capacity is the constraint rather than the appetite.

Deliveries continue in stages until the first quarter of 2027, so the full effect on available capacity in the Spanish market will not be visible until well into next year. In the meantime, the LR 1800-1.0 is underground in Madrid, and the LTM 1400-6.1 has become the first machine of its kind at work in the country.

One Order, Fifteen Cranes: Grúas Aguilar Bets Its Growth on a Single Supplier published on The HeavyQuip Magazine.