NSW authorisation has been swiftly followed by two long-term deals from underground mining contractors working in NSW, completing a successful infiltration into the NSW market for the Queensland company.

Magnum Industries director Phil Pike said the penetration into NSW was a goal the company always had in mind with the successful engineering and building of the first Jug-A-O (juggernaut) utility loader almost one year ago.

Recently Pike completed a whirlwind travelling road show where he visited 17 mines in five days in the Hunter Valley, Lithgow and Newcastle areas with the Jug-A-O.

Two of the five Jug-A-O’s in Magnum’s hire fleet have been transferred to NSW with Jug-A-O #3 starting for John Holland Contractors at Centennial’s Mandalong colliery.

Jug-A-O #4 started work for Walters Construction on BHP Billiton’s Dendrobium mine. Work will involve general run-of-mine duties and belt work.

Since the introduction of the Magnum Loaders in NSW market they have clocked up more than 250 hours of trouble free production.

The other Jug-A-O loaders have been at work over the past year in Queensland, with the both units clocking up 2000 hours.

Magnum Director Bevan Garich said that it has not been all clear sailing for Jug-A-O #1. The machine had some initial boom geometry limitations when using existing attachments. Some problems with connecting to older model attachments also restricted machine utilisation.

The introduction of the on board methane detection device also had some teething problems. These areas were promptly addressed and adopted in all following units.

Magnum Industries believes that the inclusion of the five Jug-A-O utility Vehicles (version 1) to the existing Magnum Hire Fleet will provide hire customers with more reliable and productive utility type vehicles to meet their contract and business constraints.