Caterpillar Inc.
CAT
and
Newmont Corporation
NEM
recently joined forces to develop a fully connected, automated, mining system to achieve zero emissions. Per the agreement, Newmont will make an initial investment of $100 million and deploy Caterpillar’s all-electric autonomous haulage fleet at Newmont’s Cripple Creek and Victor (CC&V) mine in Colorado, the United States and Tanami mine in Northern Territory, Australia. Caterpillar will also deliver first-of-a-kind battery electric autonomous vehicles in both an underground and open pit operation at Tanami by 2027.
Caterpillar and Newmont plan to validate equipment, infrastructure, technologies and processes to transform both surface and underground mining by focusing on safety, automation, decarbonization, optimization, data and asset management across Newmont’s global operations. The collaboration will help in creating a safer and more productive mine, and support Newmont in attaining its target of 30% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030, and being net-zero carbon by 2050. To this end, the company has earmarked an investment of $500 million over five years to identify avenues to realize its target.
Given that Newmont’s surface and underground mining fleets lead to around 40% of the company’s carbon emissions, building a new model for surface and underground mining is critical to achieving its emissions reduction targets. Per the Caterpillar and Newmont agreement, the latter plans to provide a preliminary investment of $100 million as the companies set initial automation and electrification goals for surface and underground mining infrastructures and haulage fleets at Newmont’s CC&V mine and Tanami mine. A deployment of Caterpillar’s automated haulage fleet of up to 16 vehicles at CC&V mine is planned through 2023. It will be subsequently transitioned to haulage fleet electrification and implementation of Caterpillar’s advanced electrification and infrastructure system, with delivery of a test fleet planned in 2026.
Caterpillar will develop its first battery electric zero-emissions underground truck to be deployed at Tanami by 2026. The deployment includes a fleet of up to 10 battery electric underground haul trucks, integrated with Caterpillar’s advanced electrification and infrastructure system.
With the help of technology and automation, miners are bringing radical changes to operations to increase productivity, reduce cost and improve frontline safety while cutting down on carbon emissions, which is the need of the hour considering the severity of climate change. To capitalize on this trend, Caterpillar is enhancing its autonomous capabilities and bringing innovative products into markets. These, in turn, provide Caterpillar a competitive edge in mining.
Earlier this year,
Rio Tinto plc
RIO
and Caterpillar joined forces to develop zero-emissions autonomous haul trucks for use at one of its Western Australian mining operations. The companies will work together to advance the development of Caterpillar’s future 220-ton 793 zero-emissions autonomous haul truck including the validation of Caterpillar’s emerging zero-emissions technology.
In June, Rio announced that it will deploy the world’s first fully autonomous water truck at its Gudai-Darri mine in partnership with Caterpillar. Rio Tinto intends to make Gudai-Darri one of the world’s most technologically advanced mines. Once completed, the mine will have an annual capacity of 43 million tons.
BHP Group
BHP
entered into a partnership with Caterpillar to develop and deploy zero-emissions mining trucks at BHP sites. Over the coming year, BHP will provide inputs into Caterpillar’s design process to support the development of machines that can be operated and serviced by a broader range of the workforce.
BHP will have early access to zero-emissions equipment developed by Caterpillar and hands-on learning opportunities to ensure successful deployment at BHP sites. This move will advance BHP toward its long-term goal of achieving net zero operational GHG emissions (Scope 1 and 2 from its operated assets) by 2050.
Price Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Over the past year, Caterpillar stock has gained 21.1%, compared with the
industry
’s rally of 25.5%.
Caterpillar currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see
the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here
.
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