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