EACON AHS HD1500 fleet at Havana Pit: haul profile impacts for mine planners
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on International Mining – News
30 Second Briefing
EACON has moved a fleet of six retrofitted Komatsu HD1500 haul trucks at Norton Gold Fields’ Havana Pit in Western Australia to day-shift autonomous operations, running in active production with no safety drivers on board. The Chinese-developed AHS is layered onto existing mechanical and hydraulic systems of the HD1500s rather than using OEM autonomy, signalling a retrofit route for brownfield fleets. For mine planners and geotechs, this enables tighter control of haul profiles and consistent speed–payload behaviour, potentially affecting ramp design, berm sizing and road maintenance strategies.
Technical Brief
- Six Komatsu HD1500s were commissioned with EACON’s autonomous haulage system at Norton’s Havana Pit.
- Trucks operate under Zijin Mining ownership, adding a Chinese AHS vendor into an Australian gold operation.
- EACON’s system interfaces with existing HD1500 mechanical and hydraulic controls rather than replacing them.
- Removal of safety drivers requires robust collision avoidance, perception and fail-safe braking logic on each unit.
- Transition to day-shift autonomy implies geofenced operating zones and strict interaction rules with manned equipment.
- Site safety management must integrate AHS rules into traffic management plans and emergency response procedures.
- For other brownfield mines, similar retrofits could enable staged autonomy adoption without full OEM fleet replacement.
Our Take
In our database, EACON’s work at the Havana Pit in WA sits alongside its much larger AHS rollouts at Zhundong coal and Taihe iron ore, suggesting Norton Gold Fields and Zijin Mining are effectively piloting a system already proven at scale in China before any wider Australian deployment.
The earlier visit by Thiess, MACA and RTL Mining and Earthworks to Norton’s Mulgarrie AHS trial indicates that contractors active in WA gold are closely tracking EACON’s technology, which could influence future tendering where autonomous-ready fleets such as Komatsu’s HD1500 are specified.
Among recent gold-tagged safety and projects coverage, this is one of the few items combining autonomy with a relatively small six-truck fleet, signalling that WA operators may now be testing AHS in bite-sized deployments rather than waiting for full-pit conversions.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
Related Articles
Related Industries & Products
Mining
Geotechnical software solutions for mining operations including CMRR analysis, hydrogeological testing, and data management.
CMRR-io
Streamline coal mine roof stability assessments with our cloud-based CMRR software featuring automated calculations, multi-scenario analysis, and collaborative workflows.
HYDROGEO-io
Comprehensive hydrogeological testing platform for managing, analysing, and reporting on packer tests, lugeon values, and hydraulic conductivity assessments.
GEODB-io
Centralised geotechnical data management solution for storing, accessing, and analysing all your site investigation and material testing data.