Robleks company will produce 130 ton and 220 ton dump trucks

Photo: OJSC "BELAZ"

Rostec State Corporation and the Belarusian giant focused on manufacturing the BELAZ haul trucks have set up Robleks joint venture (JV) in Moscow. The company will produce and bring to the Russian market innovative hydrogen-powered haul trucks and unmanned control systems for mining vehicles. RT-Business Development, Rostec subsidiary, and InDev Solutions, a Belarusian software development company, are also among the JV founders. 

The new company will produce two types of special vehicles. Firstly, it is the BELAZ-7513R, an autonomous haul truck with a payload capacity of 130 tons, equipped with computer vision systems, lidars and centralized control system. Such vehicle will be used for rock removal 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, without requiring a human driver, reducing downtime and tire wear. Another project is a hydrogen-powered dump truck on the basis of the BELAZ-7530 with a payload capacity of 220 tons. It will be equipped with a hybrid power unit consisting of hydrogen fuel cells and lithium-ion batteries. This will reduce fuel cost to 30-50% compared with diesel counterparts, with zero CO₂ emissions. 

“The key purpose of the new facility is to provide Russia’s mining industry with environmentally-friendly, highly automated solutions capable of reducing operating expenses and carbon footprint, and increasing health and safety at quarries. The joint venture has got exclusive rights to deploy hydrogen-powered and self-driving BELAZ trucks at Russia’s quarries. This will fill in a missing link between the Belarusian manufacturer and Russian customers and form a single platform for introducing AI, remote metering and hydrogen energy technologies. Trial run of the vehicles at active quarries is to start this year,” said Dmitry Lelikov, Deputy General Director of Rostec. 

At present, preliminary agreements on cooperation with a set of Russia’s mining companies have been signed.