More cranes are operating across Australia as elevated levels of construction activity persist, new data shows.

Construction, property and management consultancy Rider Levitt Bucknall has released the September edition of its semi-annual RLB Crane Index® report.

Launched in September 2012, the index monitors crane numbers across Australia as a way of measuring current activity levels on construction sites.

The latest count found that the number of cranes that were operating across the nation edged up from 840 in March to 845 in September.

This occurred as 277 new cranes were erected over the past six months whilst 272 were dismantled.

The latest tally marked the eighth consecutive count in which 800 or more cranes have been observed.

With the long-run average being 775, this indicates that elevated levels of activity have now persisted for several years.

In terms of locations, Sydney remains the nation’s crane capital.

All up, Sydney recorded 370 cranes (down slightly from 373 in March), accounting for 43.8 percent of the national count.

Next, Melbourne’s count remained unchanged at 199 (23.5 percent of total) supported by major infrastructure and commercial projects including the North East Link.

Behind the two capitals, the busy South East Queensland markets of Brisbane and the Gold Coast added 8 cranes each to take their counts to 73 and 67 respectively.

As public sector work wound up, however, Canberra lost 10 cranes to see its count drop from 22 to 12.

Turning to sectoral trends, the report found that:

  • Housing remains king, with the number of residential cranes increasing from 484 to 498. At this level, the residential sector accounts for 58.9 percent of cranes nationwide.
  • Reasonable gains were also seen in mixed use development (from 103 to 108) and data centres (29 to 32) amid ongoing investment in digital infrastructure. Modest gains were also seen in healthcare and hotels.
  • However, the number of cranes contracted in the commercial/office, civic and aged care According to RLB, this reflects the conclusion of earlier project cycles and a shift toward infrastructure and technology-led investment (in the case of office projects, the downward movement also reflects subdued investment in this sector).
  • The number of cranes also contracted in civil

In terms of individual projects, Melbourne’s $36 billion North East Link leads the way.

All up, 46 fixed and crawler cranes are currently being used on the project.

Regarding individual sites, Australia’s largest single-site deployment (six fixed cranes) is at the Palmers Road data centre in Truganina in Melbourne’s west.

(With 46 cranes currently operational, Melbourne’s North East Link is currently the single biggest user of cranes of any construction site in Australia. Image: Lower Plenty Road Interchange looking south. Source: Victoria Big Build.)

The latest data comes as busy conditions persist throughout much of Australia’s construction industry.

According to preliminary data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the seasonally adjusted value of construction work done throughout the nation increased by 3.0 percent in the June quarter to reach six-year highs of $76.121 billion.

Activity is being driven by the peaking in the boom of road and rail infrastructure work, increasing momentum in energy and water and a recovering residential sector.

 

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