CHN's Zhungeer Energy invests in autonomous trucks & more domestic parts & equipment supply

According to reports from Xinhua and elsewhere, one of China's top coal mining groups, CHN, has made modifications to a Komatsu 930E mining truck to turn it into a driverless vehicle. Aerospace Heavy Industry Co Ltd, based in central China's Hubei Province made the changes working closely with VIPioneers (also known as Huituo or Waytous) to an existing Komatsu electric drive mining truck which has a payload capacity of 291 t.

The transformation also includes the installation of sensors, as well as maps of the mining operations area, including all the data necessary to allow the connected truck to operate autonomously. The vehicle is owned by Zhungeer Energy Resources, a subsidiary of China's energy conglomerate China Energy Corporation (CHN Energy). CHN was formed in 2017 following the merger of China Guodian Corporation and Shenhua Group and operates two of China's largest coal mines that form together the Zhungeer Complex, namely Heidaigou and Haerwusu.

The unmanned truck has autonomously performed various functions, such as advancing, retreating, turning, going up and down slopes, loading and unloading, in a test track area covering 3.6 km. The truck is currently operating on a 4G network, but it has been made compatible with 5G communications technology. It is expected to join a fleet of trucks at Heidaigou open-pit coal mine operated by Zhunneng Group within the year.

A separate article in NengApp Media outlines how Zhungeer has also been applying domestic made parts into imported mining equipment as well as better troubleshooting to extend imported equpiment life and seeking to use more domestic mining equipment. Currently, there are 403 units of imported mining equipment in use in Heidaigou and Haerwusu open-pit mines, valued at 7.3 billion yuan, accounting for 68.53% of the total equipment value. As of the beginning of 2020, Zhungeer has used domestically-made equipment to replace 77 units of imported equipment, and the proportion of imported parts replaced by domestic parts has reached 29.8%, saving parts procurement cost and shortening the procurement cycle.

The domestic parts strategy has included repowering a Komatsu 930E truck with a Chinese Weichai 12M55 engine. The investments in machining and training and cooperation with Chinese suppliers has allowed the domestic parts supply to expanded from small simple structural parts to complex large-scale structural parts, but also from simple electrical components to integrated control units and even system integration.

In new Chinese equipment Zhungeer Energy in June 2020 also took delivery of its 8th 55 m3 Chinese WK-55 electric rope shovel from TYHI for Heidaigou mine. Other Chinese made equipment in its fleet includes an XCMG XE7000 hydraulic excavator and the HT3363 mining truck from Aerospace Heavy Industry as well as machines from most of the other big Chinese OEMs including NHL, SANY, XEMC, CRRC, MCC and others.