Queensland Mining and Engineering Exhibition (QME) opens tomorrow at 9:00 am at Mackay Showgrounds, launching three days of exhibits and technical sessions in what is billed as Queensland and Australia’s largest mining event. Now entering its fourth decade in the region, QME is expected to draw miners, OEMs and contractors focused on surface and underground equipment, automation, and mine services. Attendees can use the event to benchmark haulage, processing and maintenance technologies against current site constraints in the Bowen Basin and wider Queensland operations.

Tonly Heavy Industries has signed a framework agreement to supply 800 autonomous mining trucks to Xinjiang Hanxiang, signalling one of China’s largest single deployments of driverless haulage fleets. Announced at the “Intelligent Driving Mines, Launching a New Green Chapter” seminar in Urumqi on 16 July, the deal targets large open-pit operations in Xinjiang, integrating autonomous haulage with mine dispatch and green “intelligent mine” systems. For geotechnical and mine planners, such a fleet size will materially affect haul road design, traffic management, and pit-to-crusher logistics.

Chinese mining truck OEMs are beginning to introduce structured, multi-life rebuild programmes similar to Australian practice, where four to five full truck rebuilds per chassis are now common. The shift aims to extend the service life of large haul trucks well beyond the initial 40,000–60,000 operating hours typically seen in China, moving towards life-of-mine asset strategies. For mine planners and maintenance engineers, this signals growing support for component-level life tracking, planned frame overhauls and higher-availability fleets from Chinese-supplied ultra-class trucks.