Anaconda, McLanahan full steam ahead on tracked crushers

Alistair Forsyth of Anaconda Equipment, right, joined Mark Krause of McLanahan Corp. during an AGG1 2022 press conference. Photo: P&Q Staff

Anaconda Equipment and McLanahan Corp. leaders touched on their partnership at AGG1 Aggregates Academy & Expo, recapping the equipment they’ve collaboratively released to date and what the market can expect from them in the coming years.

“We have just launched our mid-range size mobile track jaw [and] our mid-range size open and closed tracked impactor using the Universal jaw and impactor designs,” says Alistair Forsyth, managing director of Anaconda. “Now, over the next few years, we’ll be launching a fleet of large and smaller complimentary jaws and impactors to make us ‘full line’ and compete with everyone else that sits in this world today.”

According to Forsyth, Anaconda was established in 2009 as a company focused on tracked offerings like conveyors. By 2019, Anaconda sought a partner to develop a mobile tracked crushing range.

“It made sense for [us] to start talking with McLanahan because they owned the Universal crushing line, which [had] a 130-year pedigree of impact chambers and jaw chambers,” says Forsyth, adding that Anaconda sold about 2,500 pieces of equipment in its first 10 years. “We saw an opportunity to start working together, taking those chambers and putting them on tracked pieces of equipment.”

Since partnering with McLanahan, Anaconda broke ground on a new factory in Northern Ireland that will give it significantly more manufacturing capacity.

“That’s going to be a central manufacturing hub for a lot of what we’re doing, plus some of the McLanahan equipment for exporting to countries outside of [the] Americas,” Forsyth says.

Mark Krause, managing director of North America at McLanahan, says his company has already experienced a number of benefits early into the Anaconda partnership.

“Universal historically does portable wheels, and we dabbled a little bit in tracks mistakenly,” Krause says. “This [partnership] allowed us to move in with some of the new tracks where we knew the crushers. There’s always a place in the world for a tracked machine, as well as a wheeled machine. It allows us now to offer both.”

Forsyth echoes Krause’s sentiment about the partnership being mutually beneficial.

“All in all, it’s just given us an opportunity to take the best of both companies and streamline both of our segments to make us more attractive,” Forsyth says. “There’s been so much consolidation in this industry over the last 10, 15 years of a lot of the parent groups. What this does is allow us, as a family of companies, to be able to offer static solutions, portable solutions, track solutions – everything all in one line.”