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<\/p>\nThere is a dissonance to watching a hulking, 240-tonne piece of mining equipment trudge up a slope on the whisper of battery-electric power.<\/p>\n
Where once there was huff and puff, and clouds of exhaust, all you hear are the sounds of a fizzing drone and red dirt crunching beneath monstrous tyres.<\/p>\n
Yet, for the marvel of their 480-kilowatt motors, the two electrified haul trucks launched by BHP and Rio Tinto last week are also a reminder of how far Australia’s largest miners have to go to solve their self-described “diesel problem”.<\/p>\n
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One of the Caterpillar Early Learner trucks out for a test drive. (ABC Pilbara: Alistair Bates)<\/p>\n
Two charter flights made the 1,200-kilometre journey north-east from Perth to Newman for what internal BHP documents, obtained by ABC’s Four Corners<\/a>, envisioned as a “big moment to rally” in the corporate calendar.<\/p>\n One was loaded with journalists. The other carried politicians.<\/p>\n A pair of Caterpillar Early Learner vehicles had arrived at BHP’s flagship Jimblebar mine in Western Australia’s remote Pilbara in December.<\/p>\n Now, it was time to push the message that the Big Australian was advancing its “decarbonisation strategy”, according to the leaked memo.<\/p>\n Roger Cook with Geraldine Slattery and Matthew Holcz at the launch. (ABC Pilbara: Alistair Bates)<\/p>\n Flanked by WA Premier Roger Cook, Minister for Mines David Michael, and iron ore executives from both companies, BHP Australia president Geraldine Slattery told the fly-in fly-out press pack that the trucks had undergone vigorous on-site testing.<\/p>\n “There’s no better place than the Pilbara, in some of the harshest and most demanding mining environments globally, to put this technology and these machines through their paces,” she said.<\/p>\n The ceremony came as the planet’s biggest miner, BHP, continued to deadbat reports it had quietly shelved billions of dollars<\/a> in green projects.<\/p>\n BHP’s plan to go green was ‘urgent’, until it wasn’t<\/a><\/p>\n Hundreds of pages of internal BHP documents reveal how the company sold itself as a climate leader while internally finding reasons to put off action in the Pilbara.<\/p>\n The ore-heavy Pilbara region, which contributes richly to the mining giants’ profits, is responsible for about 40 per cent of WA’s carbon emissions.<\/p>\n The “lion’s share”, as Ms Slattery put it, or roughly two-thirds of BHP’s direct Scope 1 emissions, are produced by the haulage trucks and locomotives<\/a> that cart the ore from its mines in WA and around the world.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, BHP ordered another 62 diesel-powered trucks at the same time it pledged to turn electric, as revealed by Four Corners.<\/p>\n This locks in their use at Jimblebar until at least the late 2030s and potentially to 2041.<\/p>\n Ms Slattery said it was “too early to say” whether BHP would retire this about $500 million diesel fleet early, should the battery-electric trial prove successful.<\/p>\n “Decisions on fleet and infrastructure are something that we’ll consider as we de-risk and understand what’s needed in solving the technologies and the operation here,” she said.<\/p>\n Red dirt politics<\/p>\n A quarter of the WA government’s budget flows from iron ore royalties.<\/p>\n The closeness of this public-private relationship was on full display last week, with Mr Cook on hand to congratulate BHP and Rio for their investment.<\/p>\n Curtin University’s Institute for Energy Transition director, Peta Ashworth, said it was important for the government to uplift signs of progress, even if it sometimes appears like “hand-waving”.<\/p>\n “The transition is messy,” Professor Ashworth said.<\/p>\n “If we’ve learned anything from the [Strait of] Hormuz and Iran, it’s that we’ve got to accelerate it,” she added. “But I think the more we can get big multinationals sharing data and collaborating, we’re only going to get much better outcomes from it.”<\/p>\n Two of the diesel trucks still very much in use at BHP’s Pilbara mines. (Four Corners: Ryan Sheridan)<\/p>\n Central to BHP and Rio Tinto’s reluctance to commit to a decarbonisation timeline beyond the broad-scale promise of net zero by 2050 is the challenge of scalability.<\/p>\n The currency of a Pilbara mine site is not ore. It is time: that is, the constant and efficient churn of the resource from pit to port for sale.<\/p>\n Unlike diesel-powered vehicles, which are quickly refuelled and redeployed, a battery-electric fleet that must return to the stable to recharge could throw off the economic rhythm of operations.<\/p>\n “It’s this 24\/7 nature of things,” Professor Ashworth said.<\/p>\n “I could imagine these sorts of companies being a little bit cautious because they’re really wanting to see the data.”<\/p>\n Rio’s part in the trial is precisely that: neither of the trucks will be rolled at its mine sites, as it waits to gauge the results at Jimblebar.<\/p>\n BHP and Rio Tinto say there is still uncertainty around the “scalability” of battery-electric vehicles. (ABC Pilbara: Alistair Bates)<\/p>\n Charging on the go<\/p>\n One solution, outlined by Caterpillar vice-president Thad Litkenhus, could be generating a charge in motion, something that will be trialled at Jimblebar in the next few months.<\/p>\n Mining magnate Andrew Forrest and his company Fortescue appear to have few reservations<\/a> about putting electric trucks to more immediate use.<\/p>\n The first of 360 trucks built by German-Swiss manufacturer Liebherr arrived at Fortescue’s Eliwana mine in 2023.<\/p>\n The company plans to remove many of its diesel drive-trains by October this year and replace them with battery-electric versions.<\/p>\n A further 400 zero-emission haulers are on order from Chinese state-owned manufacturer XCMG, with phased deliveries planned from 2028 to 2030.<\/p>\n Fortescue believes it can recharge them in about 30 minutes.<\/p>\n Dino Otranto at a mining conference in Karratha last week. (ABC Pilbara: Alistair Bates)<\/p>\n Chief executive Dino Otranto told the ABC he was happy to see other miners following suit.<\/p>\n “We’ve been standing here for a number of years now saying the technology is real, the economics are real, and it makes sense,” he said.<\/p>\n Professor Ashworth said Fortescue’s ambition mirrored the appetite of its billionaire founder and chairman’s competitive edge.<\/p>\n “We need people that can set direction, and go hard as part of this, and some, I guess, are more willing to take risks,” she said.<\/p>\n It is an approach to business nevertheless entangled in controversy<\/a> after controversy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Beyond the photo-op<\/p>\n There are unanswered questions around BHP’s capacity to charge the new trucks using green energy, having scrapped, among other initiatives, a 500-megawatt solar, wind, and battery project<\/a> to power its mine sites.<\/p>\n Ms Slattery said this was an area the company was continuing to explore, adding that BHP was on track to reduce its emissions by 30 per cent from a 2020 baseline by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n Roger Cook pauses for a photo with executives from Rio Tinto and Caterpillar. (ABC Pilbara: Alistair Bates)<\/p>\n The premier, for his part, was quite congratulatory.<\/p>\n “This is big,” he said at the ceremony. “This is significant for the country in terms of our efforts to get to net zero by 2050.”<\/p>\n Big, sure. But significant?<\/p>\n The most important part of this picture sat outside the frame teed up for the media: the 62 diesel trucks set to operate at the same mine for more than a decade.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/a6e12bac9d7872c0b0f442cd9ceb31a6.jpeg\")
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