Chinese mining truck leader Inner Mongolia North Hauler Joint Stock Co Ltd (NHL) based in Baotou, Inner Mongolia says that nine units of its NTE360A trucks have now been assembled in Australia at customer Yancoal’s Mt Thorley Warkworth (MTW) coal mine and are now in commissioning tests. Mt Thorley Warkworth is an integrated operation of two open cut mines located adjacent to each other, 15 km south-west of Singleton in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales. Yancoal has ordered 28 360 ton (327 t) class NTE360A electric drive mining trucks in total, which are all equipped with Wabtec premium integrated AC electric drive systems and began shipping from the Port of Tianjin to Australia in May 2021.
This order is very significant globally as it represents one of the largest mining trucks made in China to have been exported out of China. In the past there have been a handful of Chinese OEM ultraclass truck units shipped in small numbers to Namibia and Australia for example, but no fleets on this scale, so this was truly a world first. NHL has also had success in Europe with exporting its large mining trucks, as it now has a fleet of 11 236t class NTE240 electric drive units running at Serbia Zijin Copper.
Wabtec told IM when the order was first announced that its Optimized Integrated Electric Drive Systems “deliver exceptional quality, customer value, and unparalleled technology. In both propulsion and retarding, they outperform other drives of equivalent payloads.” Bappa Banerjee, Wabtec’s General Manager of Mining Equipment added: “We are proud to partner with NHL and support their growth. These integrated electric drive systems will improve the performance of their mining trucks by reducing fuel costs and increasing reliability, giving their customers a distinct sustainable cost advantage over the service lifetime of their trucks.”
MTW an open cut mine, using a dragline truck and shovel method. Employees work in shifts to keep the mine operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week. After being washed and prepared for sale, the coal is loaded onto trains for transportation 90 km to the Port Waratah Coal Terminal in Newcastle where it is shipped to international customers.
