Adani Mining’s second Liebherr R 996B excavator has been assembled on site at the Carmichael coal project and is in commissioning.
The excavator weighs about 660 tonnes and has a bucket volume of 37.5 cubic metres.
The next excavator due to join the Carmichael fleet will be the larger Liebherr R 9800 – a model weighing in at 800 tonnes and with a bucket size of 49 cubic metres.
Adani Mining says it will need a fleet of 11 excavators and 65 CAT 796 dump trucks in the next 10 years, as well as graders, dozers, water trucks and other support vehicles.
The company started work on the box cut in July to pave the way for open-cut mining to begin and expects to shift about 18 million cubic metres of earth to reach the coal seam.
The Carmichael coal mine is expected to produce 10 million tonnes of high-quality thermal coal per annum.
