by Nick Drew | Wed 19 Mar 2014
Big kit gets parked up down under
Our resident Englishman down under, Michael Bullock, who we have featured many times on the blog over the years, has been out and about again in the Perth area, checking out big kit that has been laid up or returned to base & mothballed, due to the downturn in the Australian mining industry.
It’s been described as the most severe downturn in mining that Australia has ever experienced and according to many industry insiders, this situation is unlikely to change for the next three to five years, which must be worrying for many firms who have invested heavily in big kit to serve the mines. According to Michael, big fleets of equipment are starting to return to the large storage facilities around Perth, like in this first yard, where Michael spotted 8 x Hitachi EX1900’s and 3 x EX2500’s at rest.
It’s estimated that eight thousand jobs have been lost already, with many firms set to continue the layoffs throughout this coming year. It appears from the outside that the glory days of big money for machine operators, and those associated with the mining plant and machinery sector is finally coming to an end, as China’s economic woes start to bite in Australia. In this yard, Michael spotted 9 x Caterpillar 637 motor scrapers, with even more parked up behind them.
In this shot we see 15 x Caterpillar 785C trucks, owned by large plant and machinery outfit Leighton’s, parked up in an almost eerie location.
And finally in this batch, 8 x Caterpillar D10T dozers parked up, most of which still look very young models!
However, work for our intrepid man down under continues unabated, as his boss has diversified and gone back to his agricultural contracting roots. Of course being in such a massive country as Australia, agricultural work doesn’t just involve run of the mill farm style tractors, according to Michael it involves big excavators and D9 dozers! Look out for more reports from Michael over the coming weeks, here on the Digger Man Blog.