Wabtec electric drives to equip 28 Chinese 360 ton export mining trucks from NHL for Australia’s Yancoal

NHL’s 360 ton (330 t) model is the NTE360AC, and 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 will be truly a world first. NHL is also exporting a large fleet of 30 NTE240AC trucks to East Tavan Tolgoi in Mongolia but these have a smaller payload. IM visited the NHL factory in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, in 2019.

NHL has stated that the new trucks are going to Mount Thorley Warkworth (MTW), 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. The NHL contract value is nearly CNY 1 billion (yuan).

Wabtec told IM 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.”

“We are proud to partner with NHL and support their growth,” said Bappa Banerjee, Wabtec’s General Manager of Mining Equipment. “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.”

“By combining NHL’s strong manufacturing capabilities with Wabtec’s domain expertise in electric drive systems, we are well positioned to improve capacity and efficiency for our customers,” said Wu Qingfeng, General Manager of NHL.

Wabtec’s integrated electric drive systems enable 1.4-million-pound mining trucks to carry a payload of up to 400 tons, the equivalent of 27 school buses. The systems help the trucks achieve increased productivity and speed on grade performance and help reduce fuel costs and equipment wear.

“Wabtec continues to work with our mining customers to improved performance, reliability and lower costs, which is critical to efficient and profitable operations throughout business cycles” said Banerjee. “Our electric drive systems help mines get mineral and energy resources out to the market safer, quicker and cheaper, in a sustainable way.”

The drive systems will be delivered over the next three years with an initial three units shipping to Australia in 2020.