BHP Billiton has completed its acquisition of a series of HWE Mining contract mining subsidiaries from Leighton Holdings. This follows on from a previously announced Heads of Agreement, signed on 9 August 2011. The acquisition relates to the mining equipment and related assets that service the Area C, Yandi and Orebody 23/25 operations. These operations collectively account for almost 70% of Western Australia Iron Ore’s total material movement.

BHP Billiton President Iron Ore, Ian Ashby said: “With the legal and due diligence processes now complete, our primary focus moves to ensuring the integration of the highly skilled workforce into the BHP Billiton business in a safe and efficient manner.” The acquisition is consistent with BHP Billiton’s previously stated intention to move the Western Australia Iron Ore business from contract mining to owner-operator mining.

The fleets involved are sizeable. HWE’s operations at Yandi, for example, include 16 Caterpillar 785B/C and 13 Caterpillar 789B/C haul trucks as well as five D10R and two D11R crawler dozers, seven wheel loaders (Caterpillar 988G/992G and 994D), two Komatsu and two LeTourneau wheel loaders. It is also one of the operations where surface miners have been successful; Yandi uses two Takraf TSM300 surface miners and two Vermeer T1255 machines. Area C uses mainly hydraulic excavators for loading instead of wheel loaders, including Hitachi, Liebherr and Terex models.