Tag Archives: haul truck trays

Austin Engineering’s ultra-lightweight High Performance Tray finds its market

Austin Engineering says it has received orders for, or been notified of award of, in excess of 210 truck tray orders in the December 2022 to January 2023 period, improving the company’s order book and revenue outlook for the second half of 2023.

The orders over the period represent approximately 40% (approximately 500 expected in the 2023 financial year) of orders received in a normal full year.

These orders have come from multiple customers across the globe and will be manufactured and delivered from Austin’s four operating sites located in the Asia Pacific (Australia and Indonesia), North America (Wyoming) and South America (Chile), it said.

Production of the trays is either already underway or planned to commence shortly, with most of the deliveries scheduled through 2023 but with significant revenue to be booked in the second half of the 2023 financial year.

Approximately 120 of the truck tray orders are for the recently launched, ultra-lightweight High Performance Tray (HPT). The HPT can, according to Austin, deliver significant additional ore per year due to its lighter weight and increased volume efficiency. In an early application, the truck body design could deliver an additional 45,000 t/y of ore per tray compared with previous comparable truck trays developed by Austin.

Austin expects the market interest in the HPT to continue due to its attractive design and operational benefits, it said. Austin has received several proposals to tailor the design for different geographies, suggesting it will become a mainstay in the company’s global product portfolio, complementing Austin’s existing four truck tray types.

Austin has previously announced manufacturing capacity expansions to deal with an anticipated surge in demand, which has now occurred. The expansions, now largely complete, were in Indonesia, Chile and in Western Australia, where a specialised bucket facility for Austin and Mainetec buckets has been commissioned.

Austin CEO and Managing Director, David Singleton, said: “The increased orders reflect an increased win rate in contracts across the business aided by the release of improved product designs such as the HPT, which is receiving significant market interest because of its attractive operational efficiencies.

“We had confidence to commit capital to capacity expansions at some of our major manufacturing sites, namely Indonesia, Chile and Australia. We have also invested in upgraded equipment in the workshops to enable efficiency and quality improvements across our product lines.

“Pleasingly, the capacity expansions have aligned with increased orders ensuring customer delivery timeframes can be maintained. The continuing and increasing strength in the order pipeline suggests that high utilisation levels in all jurisdictions will continue.

“We believe that our commitment to product design and development, our focus on cost control and developing capacity to meet our mining customer needs is driving this improvement in workload.”

G&G Mining delivers XMOR dump truck bodies to ConsMin’s Woodie Woodie mine

ConsMin has taken delivery of its first pair of XMOR™ dump truck bodies at the Woodie Woodie manganese operation in Western Australia, G&G Mining reports.

These bodies will be put to work at the mine, one of the state’s most abrasive manganese operations, aboard Cat haul trucks.

G&G Mining said the company had selected the lightest, yet toughest, body design in the market with the most operational benefits for its site.

“XMOR is a combination of design and advanced materials utilising Hardox® 500 Tuf to offer a body that is lighter, stronger and harder wearing,” the company said. “The design offers an increased payload, an extended wear life with no liners, eliminates hang up, has an automatic load centering feature and an anti-spill canopy.”

The customer requested a special blue paint job and decals to its XMOR bodies in support of the ConsMin “Mining Minds Matter, Working Away Not Alone” mental health program, G&G Mining added.

Woodie Woodie’s high-grade manganese ore is recognised as the world’s best manganese ore due to its high manganese content, high manganese to iron ratio, low phosphorous and hard, competent nature, according to ConsMin.

Since May 2017, the Consolidated Minerals Group has been privately owned by Ningxia Tianyuan Manganese Industry Co. The group has operating assets in Ghana and Australia and trading companies in Jersey, supplying some 11% of the world’s manganese ore production and around 19% of the demand for Chinese imports of manganese ore.

MinRes and Metso working on 15 Mt portable crushing plant

Mineral Resources Ltd told investors at its annual general meeting last week that it had designed a 15 Mt capacity portable crushing plant and planned to develop it in joint venture with Metso.

The “Next Gen” crushing and screening plant is expected to come with low capital and operating costs, in addition to significant flexibility with its portability.

The ASX-listed mining services company said it planned to install its first unit on site in the June quarter of 2020 and that it should take eight weeks to mobilise and commission at site.

The JV with Metso is expected to see both companies develop and market the plant.

In addition to the crushing and screening plant, MinRes said it had developed a carbon fibre manufacturing facility producing “structural members” and that four 150 t dump truck trays had been made, with field testing currently taking place on site.

The company, which says these trays will increase dump truck payloads by 10-15%, is expected to carry out durability trials to understand wear rates, ongoing optimisation of both tray and workshop and commence manufacturing of 200 t dump truck trays in the next 12 months.