Posted by Daniel Gleeson on twenty seventh Could 2024
Days after the conclusion of The Electrical Mine 2024 convention in Perth, Western Australia, BHP and Rio Tinto have confirmed they’re to collaborate on battery-electric haul truck trials within the Pilbara
The collaboration displays the person commitments made by BHP, Rio Tinto, Caterpillar and Komatsu to assist BHP’s and Rio Tinto’s shared ambition of web zero operational greenhouse fuel emissions by 2050, they are saying.
As a part of the collaboration, two CAT 793 haul vehicles will probably be trialled from the second half of 2024, and two Komatsu 930 haul vehicles examined from 2026 at mine websites in Western Australia’s Pilbara area.
Caterpillar and Komatsu will every present one truck to each BHP and Rio Tinto for these trials. BHP will trial the Caterpillar vehicles, whereas Rio Tinto will trial the Komatsu vehicles. Outcomes of the trials will probably be shared between BHP and Rio Tinto.
These trials characterize the primary stage of battery-electric haul truck testing at BHP’s and Rio Tinto’s Pilbara operations.
Ongoing testing, growth and refinement of truck and battery design is anticipated with every producer. It will inform the strategy for testing a bigger variety of haul vehicles and the potential deployment of battery-electric haul truck fleets into every firm’s operations.
BHP President Australia, Geraldine Slattery, stated: “Operational decarbonisation depends on breakthroughs in know-how and partnerships like it will assist drive our business ahead. We’re thrilled to work with Rio Tinto, Caterpillar and Komatsu on these trials.
“Changing diesel as a gasoline supply requires us to develop an entire new operational ecosystem to encompass the fleet. We have to deal with the best way we plan our mines, function our haulage networks and take into account the extra security and operational issues that these adjustments will carry. For this reason trials are so important to our success as we check and learn the way these new applied sciences may work and combine into our mines.
“We’ve already seen a step-change discount in Scope 1 and a couple of operational greenhouse fuel emissions by way of switching a few of our provide to renewable electrical energy, and we want to construct on that progress by way of growth of battery-electric know-how to cut back diesel utilization throughout our operations.”
Rio Tinto Iron Ore Chief Govt, Simon Trott, stated: “This collaboration brings collectively two main international miners with two of the world’s greatest producers of haul vehicles to work on fixing the important problem of zero-emissions haulage.
“There is no such thing as a clear path to web zero with out zero-emissions haulage, so it’s essential that we work collectively to get there as shortly and effectively as we will. Testing two kinds of battery-electric haul vehicles in Pilbara circumstances will present higher knowledge, and by combining our efforts with BHP we are going to speed up studying.
“As we work to repower our Pilbara operations with renewable vitality, collaborations like this transfer us nearer to fixing the shared problem of decarbonising our operations and assembly our web zero commitments.”
