December 7 - Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL) has delivered a super-heavy longwall shearer from Europe to a coalmine in Australia.
The 102-tonne shearer, which is used to cut coal from a coalface was built by Caterpillar Global Mining at its plant in Lünen, Germany. The 17 m long unit was transported to the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium and was sent to Port Kembla, Australia, on WWL's Asian Emperor. A 16 m long Samson trailer with a low ground clearance was used to move and stow the machine for the sea voyage. The unit was destined for Whitehaven Coal's Narrabri North mine in the Gunnedah Basin of New South Wales, Australia.
Caterpillar previously opted to transport equipment of this kind as separate components, due to their size and weight. This was the first time it opted to move a shearer in one piece, which eliminated the costly and time-consuming reassembly process in Australia.
"It's traditionally considered cheaper to ship this kind of cargo as separate components and pay for assembly at the destination," explains Shintaro Tsuchiya, WWL's account manager for the project. "By finding a way to ship the unit fully assembled, WWL was able to justify to the customer that ro-ro can, in fact, be an even better, cheaper, faster solution for large cargo projects."
