September 19, 2013
Atlas may have carried the world on his shoulders, but for Stanwell Corporation, a swimming pool’s worth of dirt at a time is more than enough for their latest “toy” at Meandu coal mine.
Stanwell Corporation’s new Hitachi EX8000-6BH excavator was officially unveiled at a ceremony at the mine on Tuesday.
It will be mostly used to scoop away “overburden”, the soil and rocks that lay above the coal seams.
Stanwell held a competition among employees to name the new behemoth.
Jacob Orbell won with “Atlas” after the mythological Greek Titan who carried the earth.
Stanwell Corporation chairman Warwick Parer said it took 28 semi-trailers to deliver the parts for Atlas to Meandu.
Three cranes were hired locally to help with the assembly, which took a total of 2800 man hours (with no lost time for injuries or incidents).
Atlas can carry 75 tonnes in every bucket-load, equivalent to a 25m swimming pool.
It stands 10 metres high or 20m with the boom extended.
Stanwell Corporation CEO Richard Van Breda said the excavator was the largest piece of machinery of its type in Australia.
He said Stanwell had made a lot of difficult decisions recently to ensure it remained profitable but the new excavator was a demonstration of the corporation’s long-term commitment to the South Burnett.
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Downer EDI driver Roger Kimber puts the Hitachi excavator through its paces:
