Modern Mining February 2019

COVER STORY

been incredibly successful and is the clear mar- ket leader in its class. The A30G and the A35G are also proving popular, as is the A60H,” he states. Buys points out that Babcock has secured some very substantial orders for the haulers, in particular the A40G, in recent months. “One customer has taken 19 machines and another has purchased 13; we’ve also made a major breakthrough with a mine in the Cape, which previously had no Volvo machines in its fleet. We’re finding that there’s a growing awareness in the market of the safety, fuel efficiency and quality of the Volvo product. Part of the reason for this – apart from our own marketing efforts – is ‘word of mouth’ recommendation from one customer to another.”

Above: The new 100-ton capacity Volvo R100E rigid hauler. Centre: Essential mainte- nance points on the EC950E are easily accessed via the wide-opening and conve- niently located compart- ment doors using central and surrounding walkways.

Elaborating on the A60H, Vaughan says the demand for the machine has been an eye-opener. “It has clearly filled a gap in the marketplace. Launched at the same time as the EC950E, it is the biggest true articulated hauler in the world and – with a payload of 55 metric tons or 61 short tons – gives users a real alter- native to rigid dump trucks in high-end mining applications. We’ve now sold over 30 A60Hs, mostly into coal mining and alluvial diamond mining.” Babcock can now offer, of course, a range of four Volvo-branded rigid haulers to complement the Volvo articulated haulers. These machines succeed the previous Terex Trucks range (which came under the Volvo CE ‘umbrella’ after the company acquired Terex Trucks in 2014). Three of them – the R45D, the R60D and R70D – are based on their TR-Series predecessors but the flagship, the 100-ton capacity R100E, is an entirely new design which was officially launched globally at Volvo’s Motherwell facil- ity in Scotland in April last year. As has been previously reported in Modern Mining , the first local customer for the R100E is Steyn Diamante, which has ordered three of the haulers. Due for delivery within the next few weeks, these will be deployed at the com- pany’s Schutsekama alluvial diamond mine in the Northern Cape, where they will join a large fleet of mining/earthmoving equipment which includes three Volvo A60Hs. Babcock is expecting the R100E – which was trialled in South Africa during its devel- opment phase – to become a significant player

A Volvo EC480D crawler excavator in action at Steyn Diamante’s Schutsekama mine. The EC480D is highly popular with Babcock’s mining customers.

20  MODERN MINING  February 2019