mtu Africa personnel were furthermore engaged by operator First Quantum in Zambia at its Kansanshi mine to replace the competitors engine of a Hitachi EH3500-AC2 mining truck with a mtu 12-cylinder Series 4000. The Kansanshi mine is the largest copper mine in Africa, and five trucks in total are to be repowered there over the next few months. The tried-and-trusted mtu 12-cylinder Series 4000 is already powering two of the Hitachi EH3500-AC3 trucks at the same mine.
Over 800 Series 4000 retrofits worldwide
It is always a compliment to mtu engines when they are retrofitted to mining trucks – especially when they replace other manufacturers' engines. Since the launch of the Series 2000 and Series 4000, they have been fitted to over 800 mine trucks as well as excavators, front-end loaders and surface blast hole drilling rigs worldwide, with the Series 4000 accounting for the lion's share. Each project confirms the outstanding strengths of this series, in particular in terms of excellent fuel consumption, performance, reliability and uptime, long maintenance cycles and customer service quality – all superb customer benefits. The engines used are always bang-up-to-date versions. One major driver of lower total cost of ownership is the excellent fuel consumption. “As consumption accounts for around 80 to 85% of TCO, this is a key purchasing criterion for many customers,” emphasized Robert Wagner, Senior Manager Mining /Oil & Gas in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Russia.