Zijin Mining unit Norton Gold Fields could deploy a fleet of mine trucks with Chinese automation technology in Western Australia’s Kalgoorlie goldfields next year under a deal with EACON Mining Technology and Thiess.
Beijing-based EACON has deployed autonomous haulage systems at many mines in China and last November announced it had won a commercial contract with Zijin at its Zijinshan copper-gold mine.
EACON also signed a memorandum of understanding with contract mining major Thiess last September, giving the former an “opportunity to conduct early production trials at Thiess’ Australian and international mining operations”.
EACON opened an office in Perth, WA, last year.
It said it would deploy its ORCASTRA autonomy technology on two of Thiess’ Komatsu HD1500 trucks at Norton operations “in the coming months”.
“This phase will focus on validating both the drive-by-wire system and autonomous functionality under real-world mining conditions,” EACON said. “In the second phase the project will scale to a fully autonomous haulage fleet operating within an active production pit, integrating seamlessly into day-to-day mining operations.”
The parties are aiming for early 2026 to run full production trials.
Norton has surface gold operations around its Paddington plant and at Binduli.
“This project is a key step in bringing smart mining to our overseas operations,” Jiansheng Liao, executive general manager of Zijin’s Overseas Operations Department said. “We believe that through close collaboration autonomous technology will deliver impactful results at Norton Gold Fields and help drive Zijin’s global push for intelligent mining.”
Wei Lin, CEO of Norton Gold Fields, said EACON’s technology would enable the company to “mine low-grade resources that were previously out of reach – supporting community development, job creation and long-term value”.
Thiess group executive – autonomy and assets, Ryan Kirkwood said EACON’s OEM-agnostic technology platform, scalability and “demonstrated results” were key to moving the collaboration forward.
“Their technology, combined with Thiess’ 90 years of owning and maintaining mining assets across the world, provides the flexibility and proven experience needed to deliver tailored autonomy solutions across diverse mining environments,” Kirkwood said.
EACON says ORCASTRA has been deployed on more than 1000 trucks at over 20 sites.
