SURFACE MINING TRUCKS
XCMG added that with the implementation of China ’ s national ‘ 3060 dual carbon ’ strategy , “ the mining and utilisation of China ’ s mineral resources is quietly undergoing a new round of adjustment . The green , high-end , large-scale and intelligent upgrading of mining construction equipment has become an inevitable trend .” The 3060 decarbonisation strategy is China ’ s commitment to hit peak emissions by 2030 at the latest and then achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 .
NHL as a technology & autonomy leader
In January 2022 , China ' s mining truck market leader , Inner Mongolia North Hauler Joint Stock Co ( NHL ) won a bid to supply its 91 t TR100A mining truck model to a collaboration between Chinese contract mining and mine development giants China Railway Seventh Bureau ( CRSG ) and China CRG Ninth Bureau for a total amount of nearly 300 million yuan or over US $ 47 million . The mining trucks will be used in the DRC by
Luoyang Molybdenum , which owns the Tenke Fungurume copper-cobalt mine as well as the DRC Iron Resources project . Also in the 91 t class , but this time in maintenance , NHL has won a bid wth Shenhua Nortel Shengli Energy , the national energy and coal mining group in China to undertake daily maintenance on 48 sets of trucks over a contract period of three years , which includes NHL trucks but also those from two other manufacturers .
NHL says it is also investing more than 5 % of its revenue in R & D . “ Our technology centre makes comprehensive use of international and domestic intellectual and material resources , adopting a way of production , learning and research on the basis of tracking the world ' s advanced technology , while taking customer demand as the starting point and carrying out appropriate advances gradually from passive to active ,” said Deputy Chief Designer Yang Zhe .
While the company participates in joint research and development with its key component suppliers like Wabtec , Siemens ,
Cummins and other international companies , it is also advanced in developing its own technologies . It owns the only state-level engineering research centre in the field of mining trucks in China . It is the chairman unit of the Engineering Transportation Machinery Branch of China Construction Machine Industry Association Mining Truck Branch , part of the Chinese Society of Automotive Engineering . It is one of the leading companies involved in setting national standards for mine trucks in China .
Recently , NHL working with CRRC , Kazakhstan Power Group and other domestic leading enterprises in a project devoted to rectification and inverter control of electric drive mining trucks , developed its own electric drive solution for 220 t , 236 t and 330 t trucks , and the first NTE360B large mining truck with a Chinese made electric wheel motor has been successfully tested and debugged . NHL has also entered the second phase of development of a new mining truck remote health diagnosis service platform . “ This is the first intelligent central control system
XEMC going international with 120 t battery truck
In 2021 , Chinese mining truck OEM Xiangtan Electric Manufacturing Co Ltd ( XEMC ), whose mining equipment now comes under Xiangtan Electric Manufacturing Group Heavy Equipment ( XEG ), as part of a contract with energy company SPIC , converted a 108 t class SF31904 AC drive rigid truck to run on all electric lithium battery power in Huolinhe coal mine , Inner Mongolia . The converted truck became the word ’ s largest BEV and has a 120 t payload . It began operations in July 2021 and has a large capacity and high peformance CATL battery pack with four charging ports capable of charging from a fixed charging station in about 90 mins then is able to work for 7-8 hours . This is done with manual plug in charging , but there is a robotic arm 1,500 kW / h charging project ongoing . XEMC says a traditional 100 ton truck consumes 1,200-1,600 L of diesel a day and the cost is about $ 1,480-1,970 for the mine . The power consumption of the electric truck is 3,800-4,300 kW per day , at a cost of $ 263-298 . In addition there are savings from less maintenance work eg changing engine oil , fuel and air filters . Low noise , zero emissions and estimated annual CO 2 emissions reduction of 1,500 t . One truck feature is a retard resistance box – while retarding , the system will charge the battery when the bus voltage is in safety range , otherwise using the retard resistance box to consume the retard power . Jimmy Ji , XEMC Director , Marketing & Sales : “ Of course like any prototype there have been some issues and failures but the truck has been operating for nine months now with any major issues . It is being loaded in the same way as the diesel trucks with rope shovels . XEG has two orders for the electric truck – one for trucks to be leased in China for a zinc mine in Yunnan Province . That is for two units set to be delivered in August 2022 . A second order is from a Brazilian mining contractor , initially for two trucks but with an a further 10 planned – the first two set to be shipped in June / July 2022 . It is understood that the Brazilian trucks will also be retrofitted for autonomy as well . There is a new project with a Chinese mining company to look at building a 220 t electric truck likely to start in mid-2022 but involves higher voltage charging so there is work to be done on the charging station connectors . Again this truck will be based on retrofit of an existing diesel-electric drive truck . XEMC did join the Charge On Innovation Challenge , but left after the second round , as it was the only mining truck OEM involved and so did
After testing its 120 t battery electric mining truck at Huolinhe coal mine in China , XEMC now has orders for the truck from both China and Brazil , plus is forming Igreencle , a new electric mining equipment company , with Datang Telecom and SPIC
not want to share all its technical IP openly with other OEMs as well as there being some differences in opinion of how mining BEV charging should move forward . Finally , what about the relatively large number of wide body trucks eg 50 or 60 t capacity , now running in China from Tonly , Liugong , Zoomlion , LGMG , Sany , Weichai and others ? Ji said as these trucks are not operating around the clock and their chassis design means they can only accommodate small battery packs – they are simply using a swapping strategy with the batteries needing changed every two to three hours of running . But swapping is also being developed for larger mining trucks and a project on this is underway between XEMC and Huolinhe mine . Ji said it has its challenges due to the amount of high and low voltage connections as well as the cooling system ; to the point where as charging technology improves , then that is likely a better option , for larger rigid mining trucks anyway . The final piece of news was that XEMC / XEG and two partners ( telecomms / 5G group Datang and Huolinhe mine owner , energy group SPIC ) are forming a new company called Igreencle to focus on green mining trucks and other electric mining equipment . Igreencle will be fulfilling the order for the next 10 Brazil trucks following the first two .
66 International Mining | MAY 2022