Yancoal’s Mount Thorley Warkworth (MTW) has achieved a huge milestone with North Hauler Ltd (NHL) and Aury NHL Mining, celebrating the end of a three-year availability contract after the delivery of 15 NTE360A haul trucks.
It’s the first venture for NHL and Aury NHL Mining into the Australian market and the first time putting this fleet of trucks together outside of a factory.
NHL has over 7,000 trucks operating worldwide serving more than 500 mines. Aury is a joint venture between DADI Engineering Group and Inner Mongolia North Hauler Joint Stock Co. Ltd based out of Rutherford in the Hunter Valley.
It was established to deliver more responsive and customer-centric support to the Australian market with over 95 per cent local talent employed who truly understand the Australian mining industry.
Chief Operations Officer at Aury NHL Mining Ian David said when the trucks were sold, they guaranteed 92 per cent availability and they’ve far exceeded that.
“The trucks had 93 per cent availability. It’s amazing, prior to this, these trucks had never been built anywhere else in the world.
“They were disassembled, shipped out in seven major components and then we built them here at MTW. We had some hiccups at the start which activated the availability contract with NHL support and after that was sorted the trucks have performed really well.
“This is NHL China’s first venture into Australia. They want to be a player; they know they aren’t a Caterpillar here, but they’re a huge company in China. They’re very innovative and a pioneer in intelligent and zero-emission mining equipment,” said Ian.
The relationship between Aury NHL and Yancoal Australia is a great one. Warwick Gloster, Maintenance Manager at MTW said they’re very impressed with the overall performance of the Ultraclass truck fleet.
“It would have been easy to go with the traditional offerings that have been here for so long, but we decided to look more broadly. The product NHL offered had good structure, drive and control systems as well as a really good engine, so it all stacked up and we haven’t been disappointed.
“The trucks have a modular set up too so if the economics change or the government of the day changes their rules it can be retrofitted with batteries, or a smaller engine or a hybrid system,” said Warwick.
“The overall carrying capacity isn’t impacted, neither is horsepower or speed on grade, so we could make changes but retain productivity.”
Ian added, “Yancoal know us and we know them and we all work towards the same goal. We want these trucks to work and to move mountains which they do”.
MTW is currently approved for mining until 2037 with resources and reserves that exceed this.
“There’s a long future for us here so it was really important that we picked an asset that would last until at least the end of the current approvals, but potentially go beyond that as well,” Warwick added.
