UK-Australian resources firm BHP and its partner, Japanese trading house Mitsubishi, plan to spend $100mn on 34 autonomous trucks at their 4.5mn t/yr Daunia coking coal mine in the Bowen basin in Queensland, Australia.

The rollout at the Daunia mine will be completed at the end of 2021. The move to automate haulage in their coking coal operations under the BHP-Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) was outlined earlier this year with automated trucks installed at the Goonyella coking coal mine, which is also operated by BMA.

BHP has invested in automated trucks at its iron ore operations in Western Australia for more than three years, but the move into coking coal only started this year and the first of the autonomous trucks will begin operations in February 2021.