Iron ore (siderite) miner VA Erzberg in Austria continues to invest in its mining operation with the latest Komatsu equipment. A 100 ton class HD785-8 rigid dump truck has now been added to the fleet at the Erzberg iron ore mine.

The partnership between Kuhn Österreich, Komatsu, and VA Erzberg GmbH has existed for more than 20 years and they say is characterised by a strong foundation of trust. To celebrate this delivery at the Erzberg mine, top management from distributor KUHN and Komatsu Europe joined on-site for a handover ceremony.

High machine uptime is essential for the productivity of the plant. Therefore, VA Erzberg prioritises high-performance equipment with high availability. A focus on reliability and the quality of service by KUHN was cited as a major reason why Komatsu was once again the choice for this investment.

Currently, 10 Komatsu rigid dump trucks are in use in production operations – seven of these machines are dump trucks from the HD785-5 or HD785-7 series with three 116 ton class HD985-5 trucks. The HD785-8 dump truck is replacing an older HD785 dump truck with around 60,000 operating hours. The mine also uses six Liebherr electric drive T 236 trucks that utilise a trolley line developed in conjunction with Liebherr.

Other Komatsu equipment includes loading tools in the form of WA800-3 and WA800-8 wheel loaders for main extraction and a PC1250 hydraulic excavator for overburden removal as well as the D155AXi intelligent crawler dozer for spreading material at the waste dump.

Photo courtesy Baublatt