IM 2020 May 20 | Page 6

WORLD PROSPECTS Wabtec electric drives to equip 28 Chinese ultraclass NHL mining trucks for Australia W abtec in April announced that it will supply Inner Mongolia North Hauler Joint Stock Co Ltd (NHL), the leading mining truck manufacturer in China, with 28 360 ton premium integrated AC electric drive systems to support the company’s 360 ton (330 t), 28 strong mining truck contract with Yancoal in Australia. The systems will help Yancoal’s mining fleet achieve increased productivity and speed on grade performance and help reduce fuel costs and equipment wear. The existing NHL 360 ton model is the NTE360, which has a Siemens AC drive, with the new trucks for Yancoal with Wabtec AC drives to be referred to as the NTE360A. 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 NTE240 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 southwest 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. The signing ceremony between NHL and Wabtec example, for its 136, 186 and 236 t class trucks, but that this order represents an entirely new depth of cooperation between the two companies. The new drive system for the NTE360A is a new design and one that has been developed to work with a wet brake, a specification from the customer as it allows more dissipation of heat and allows the truck to stop more quickly. This willingness to work with NHL on a solution for Yancoal was also a major part of Wabtec’s success in winning this order. Off highway vehicle electric wheel motor quality testing at Wabtec's factory in Forth Worth, Texas 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 improve 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.” Banerjee told IM in an exclusive interview on the deal that Wabtec has been a partner of NHL for many years, supplying electric drive systems, as an Graphic showing components and attributes of Wabtec electric drives for mining trucks Yancoal is taking delivery of 28 NTE360A electric drive trucks from NHL between 2021 and 2023 Banerjee adds: “I am very proud of our teams – a lot of work in design plus R&D has gone into making sure this new electric drive system will work with wet brakes on the NHL trucks as requested by Yancoal. We have also extensively proven the drive system performance already in trials in the US.” Lastly, another commitment made by Wabtec is that all drive system spare parts will exclusively be sold via NHL working together with the Wabtec service managers. The drive systems supplied by Wabtec include multiple components including the two wheel motors but also the transmission, gridbox and alternator. On large trucks it is standard for these to be shipped directly to the mine site for assembly, with the remainder of the truck shipped from NHL in Baotou. The first drive systems are understood to be being delivered in late 2020, with the first of the 28 trucks arriving early 2021 and shipping through 2023. www.en.chinanhl.com; www.yancoal.com.au;  www.wabtec.com 4 International Mining | MAY 2020