XCMG joins select club of large electric rope shovel OEMs with the XES35

On June 6, Xuzhou-headquartered Chinese mining and construction equipment major XCMG held a special event celebrating its largest open-pit mining equipment that it refers to as its ‘three arrows’ – and displayed its new XES35 35 m3 electric rope shovel that only recently came off the production line. It joins its other largest class machines to date – namely the 700 t XE7000 hydraulic excavator plus its 440 ton ultra class mining truck – the XDE440.

Present at the event was Peng Qiming, President of the China Mining Federation and Secretary of the Party Committee; Su Zimeng, President of the China Construction Machinery Industry Association and a Chairman of XCMG Group and XCMG Machinery; Party Secretary Yang Dongsheng, Vice President of XCMG Machinery; Meng Wen, Assistant President of XCMG Machinery; General Manager of XCMG Mining Machinery and Party Secretary Cui Jisheng. They were joined by other leaders and an audience of nearly 400 people, including experts and academics, plus customer representatives from large open pit mines in China, and industrial alliance partners.

The successful launch of the XES35 represents what the OEM says is a new generation of electric shovel products from XCMG, and indicates that XCMG "has independently mastered the core technology of large-scale electric shovels," and adds it to the list of the world's large electric shovel manufacturers, along with Caterpillar, Komatsu, IZ-KARTEX and Taiyuan Heavy Industry (TYHI). India's BEML has also produced a 20 m3 capacity model.

The new XES35 has a weight of about 1,100 t, a height of 18.5 m, and a standard bucket capacity of 35 m3, or about 65 t of typical metallic ore​​. It is ideally paired with 220-300 t mining trucks and was displayed at the event with an XDE260 truck. XCMG says it is suitable for stripping and loading operations in large opencast coal mines, iron ore mines and non-ferrous metal mines with an annual output of more than 10 Mt/y. It says it has the advantages of high intelligence, green operation due to electric power, high reliability, high comfort and low comprehensive use cost.​

After nearly two years of development and testing, the XES35 shovel the availability rate reached more than 90%, XCMG says thanks to long life design technology based on discrete element and multi-body dynamics simulation, welding deformation control and welding stress relief technology for large and heavy load structural parts.

Moving on to XCMG's other large machines, in October 2019, the first XE7000 700 t mining excavator was launched, and after 15,000 hours of reliability testing, it began full deployment at Heidaigou coal mine in Inner Mongolia, part of the Zhungeer mining complex of national coal mining group CHN Energy. Two XE7000s have now been delivered.

The world's largest tonnage rear drive AC-drive diesel-electric dump truck, the XDE440, was launched in March 2022 with initial customers being Zijin Mining and China Minmetals. The OEM says the truck is now also operating in South America and adds that the truck has achieved 7,300 hours and an availability rate of 95% in its first years of operation, "meeting the highest industry standards in the global high-end mining market such as South America, North America and Australia." It features "intelligent variable frequency traction, high torque wheel drive, cab rollover protection, fatigue design of large bearing components, and has more than 60 independent patents."