Leading Chinese construction and mining equipment group XCMG has announced that it has now completed manufacturing of a second XE7000 hydraulic excavator which recently rolled off the production line having had comprehensive upgrades and optimisation over the first unit.

The second 700 t hydraulic excavator it says has fully absorbed the nearly 13,000 hours of real mine experience of the first one in the Heidaigou open-pit coal mine in Inner Mongolia, which is part of the Zhungeer Complex along with Haerwusu and owned by China’s largest coal miner China Energy Corporation (CHN Energy). XCMG says the new XE7000 has a backhoe design with a larger bucket capacity and higher operating efficiency to fully meet the needs of mining customers.

It says numerous upgrades have greatly improved the operating comfort, safety and maintenance convenience of the whole machine. The platform layout is more user-friendly, and all maintenance areas can be reached through non-slip walkways, making the operation safer and the maintenance more convenient. The heat dissipation conditions of the engine compartment have been improved, the service life of the components has been increased, and overheating is no longer an obstacle to continuous work. The management of the lubrication system is more intelligent, which can complete the differentiated management of the grease category at the lubrication point, and achieve the best match of reliability and economy.

In 2018, the first 700 t super-large hydraulic excavator independently developed in China rolled off the production line. It has power equivalent to nearly 30 cars, and its bucket can shovel 60 t of material, which is close to a capacity of the train box. XCMG says China has now become the 4th country in the world with the R&D and manufacturing capacity of hydraulic excavators above 700 t – after Japan (Hitachi), Germany (Komatsu Mining Germany) and France (Liebherr).

In 2019, XE7000 was put into operation at Heidaigou, one of the largest open-pit coal mines in Asia. The average working time per day is more than 18 hours, the digging and loading equates more than 1,500 cubic metres per hour, and the availability is more than 90%.