Scania P 280 4×4 XT water carts bound for Pilbara mines
Premium Plant Hire is adding four Scania P 280 4×4 XT rigids to its fleet, including three 11,000-litre water carts destined for hard-to-reach drill sites in the Pilbara.
Premium Plant Hire’s new Scania P 280 4×4 XT water cart combines an 11,000-litre capacity with all-wheel-drive access for remote Pilbara drill sites.
Mining is rather fond of enormous machinery. There are dump trucks the size of suburban houses, excavators capable of rearranging the landscape before smoko and drills that appear intent on discovering what is underneath Western Australia.
Yet none of them is particularly useful for long if the comparatively modest service truck cannot reach them.
That is where Perth-based Premium Plant Hire’s latest Scania P 280 4×4 XT trucks come into the picture. The first of four new rigids has arrived, with three to be fitted as water carts and the fourth configured as a service truck.
The water carts will support drilling operations in some of the Pilbara’s more awkward corners—places where a conventional truck may arrive only after considerable wheelspin, several attempts and some increasingly colourful discussion over the two-way.
Premium Plant Hire Managing Director Russell Wells says the new 4x4s represent an expansion of the company’s long-standing relationship with Scania.
The company already operates between 30 and 40 Scania G 410 and G 420 XT 8×4 trucks, predominantly as heavy service vehicles working across Australian mine sites.
Now Russell is bringing the same XT toughness to a smaller and more agile package.
Premium Plant Hire Managing Director Russell Wells inside the cab of the company’s new Scania P 280 4×4 XT water cart.
Premium by name and necessity
Russell established Premium Plant Hire in 2012 following a career that began as a heavy-duty diesel mechanic in the mining industry.
After working for mining equipment manufacturers, he moved into sales and then equipment rental, where he noticed a fairly obvious gap in the market.
Some hire companies were sending equipment to site that was unreliable, poorly maintained or simply unsuited to the job. This is inconvenient in most industries. On an isolated mine site, where downtime is measured in thousands of dollars rather than mild irritation, it can become spectacularly expensive.
Premium Plant Hire was built around supplying mine-compliant equipment that was properly maintained, fit for purpose and, most importantly, ready to work.
“Our business started off in plant hire and that’s still our core business, but we moved successfully into bodybuilding,” Russell says.
“We have been very happy with Scania for the bigger service trucks. We have about 80 vehicles hired out in total, and over the years we have built more than 200 body modules for our rental fleet and our customers.
“Now we’re moving to Scania for the smaller trucks, based on the success we have had with the 8x4s.”
The rear spray system distributes water across the worksite, while the Scania’s 4×4 driveline is designed to carry it into difficult terrain.
A smaller Scania with a large thirst
The 4×4 is the smallest of Scania’s off-road all-wheel-drive truck platforms. Its larger 6×6 and 8×8 relatives are already familiar sights around Australian mine sites, where roads can vary from respectable gravel to something resembling a recently shelled battlefield.
Premium Plant Hire’s new P 280 4×4 XT water carts will carry 11,000 litres, a capacity Russell says puts them close to many conventional 6×4 water trucks.
That is a useful achievement because the Scania combines the capacity of a larger water cart with the traction and manoeuvrability of a genuine all-wheel-drive truck.
“The 4×4 is going to be a new Scania product line for us compared with what we have traditionally used,” Russell says.
“The new P 280 4x4s will be doing a very specialised job as water carts in the Pilbara, filling drills that are often working in extremely hard-to-access areas. All-wheel drive is critical.
“Most water carts are built on 6×4 platforms, but I don’t think I’ve seen a 4×4 water truck before. We achieved 11,000 litres on the Scania 4×4, which is right on the heels of any 6×4.
“The main advantage is its ability to traverse difficult terrain safely.”
In other words, Premium Plant Hire has managed to remove an axle without dramatically shrinking the water capacity. Better still, all four wheels are employed rather than having two of them along largely for moral support when the ground becomes soft.
From left: Premium Plant Hire Engineering & Maintenance Coordinator Lachy Fay, Sales and Rental Manager Adam Verschelden and Managing Director Russell Wells with the new 11,000-litre Scania P 280 4×4 XT water cart.
Built for mine-site punishment
Russell says the appeal of the Scania XT specification goes well beyond its driveline configuration.
“What we like about the Scania product is that it is more robust than other trucks, and that’s critical in a mining environment,” he says.
“Our Scania trucks spend their entire lives off-road, and the XT specification is well suited to our needs, he adds. The Scania XT has a heavy-duty front end and steel bumpers, where other brands use plastic. It feels tough enough, and it has longevity. We aim to get seven years out of a Scania, whereas other trucks might give us only three or four years in the same application.”
That difference in service life becomes particularly important in a dry-hire operation. Premium Plant Hire supplies the truck without a driver, but remains responsible for keeping it operating in environments that are rarely kind to machinery.
“When you’re looking at capital investment, fleet management and maintaining a balanced rental fleet, that service life is important,” Russell says.
“You need uptime and dependability. The Scania brand has also been a powerful vehicle for Premium Plant Hire, particularly when we are dealing with tier-one owner-miners.”
Premium Plant Hire’s 11,000-litre Scania water cart covers a broad working area while travelling over rough ground.
The saltwater survival test
Dust, heat, corrugations and heavy loads are only part of the punishment endured by mining support vehicles. Some of Premium Plant Hire’s Scanias also spend their working lives surrounded by extremely corrosive water.
One Scania 8×4 worked at Koolan Island, off the Kimberley coast north of Derby, for more than two years.
“Basically, it was operating in salt water the whole time,” Russell says.
“When we got the truck back and put it through the workshop, it was amazing how well it had stood up to those highly corrosive conditions.
“Three years later, that truck is still a strong performer in our rental fleet.”
Other Premium Plant Hire Scanias are working around Kambalda in the Western Australian Goldfields, where Russell says the groundwater can be seven times saltier than seawater.
That is less a working environment and more an accelerated corrosion experiment. Nevertheless, Russell says the Scanias continue to withstand the conditions remarkably well.
So saving seen how the trucks return from some of Western Australia’s most punishing sites and continue earning their keep, Russell’s assessment carries the conviction of a man whose fleet has gathered its evidence the hard way.
“Our Scania trucks are probably among the best advertisements for Scania in Australia when it comes to operating in adverse environments,” he says.
The Scania P 280 4×4 XT demonstrates its water-spraying system ahead of deployment to hard-to-reach drill sites in the Pilbara.
Keeping the wiring intact
Premium Plant Hire also constructs its own service truck and water cart bodies, making the relationship between the cab-chassis and body equipment particularly important.
Modern mine-specification vehicles can require door alarms, park-brake alarms, additional lighting and numerous other safety systems. Integrating all of that equipment can become complicated if the truck does not provide a dedicated electrical interface.
Russell says Scania’s factory bodybuilder interface allows Premium Plant Hire to install those systems without cutting into the cab wiring or conducting an electrical archaeological dig behind the dashboard.
“Scania does the bodybuilder interface really well,” he adds.
“I don’t believe many manufacturers offer this type of interface. It keeps us out of the cab from a wiring perspective when we are fitting safety features such as door alarms, park-brake alarms and lights.
“It makes the truck more reliable because nobody is hacking into the wiring in different places looking for power. Everything can be connected through one position.”
Factory corrosion protection and bodybuilder integration also help reduce construction time and complexity while improving the vehicle’s long-term reliability.
These details may not attract the same attention as an 11,000-litre tank or an all-wheel-drive system, but they become very important when a truck is working around the clock several thousand kilometres from the workshop that built it.
Premium Plant Hire’s new Scania P 280 4×4 XT water cart combines an 11,000-litre capacity with all-wheel-drive access for remote Pilbara drill sites.
Uptime is the real premium
Premium Plant Hire’s Scania 8x4s operate around the clock, every day of the year.
Under the company’s dry-hire model, downtime is not simply the customer’s problem. Premium Plant Hire provides service support and will send technicians to site when required, regardless of how remote that site may be.
“Our trucks work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,” Russell says.
“Uptime is important because we are responsible for various aspects of downtime. We want to support our customers wherever they are operating, so we will send service technicians to site whenever they are needed.”
Scania Mining Account Manager Arron Ebsworth says Premium Plant Hire operates its trucks in some of the most demanding terrain and environmental conditions found anywhere in the world.
“It is a tribute to the underlying strength and engineering of the Scania product, together with our decades of global mining experience, that these trucks just eat up Western Australian mining operations,” Arron says.
“We are looking forward to seeing the Scania P 280 4×4 XT deployed as a water cart in the Premium Plant Hire fleet.
“We are confident it will deliver what the customer needs in terms of reliability, accessibility and strength, as well as high levels of driver comfort and safety.
“Mine sites rely on service vehicles that can be trusted to work around the clock and keep the operation running. The Scania 4×4 is another configuration capable of doing that job all day, every day.”
The new 4×4 water carts may be smaller than the giant machinery they will support, but their role is no less important.
After all, when an 11,000-litre water cart can reach the drill and keep it working, nobody gives it much thought. When it cannot, a very expensive piece of mining equipment suddenly becomes an equally expensive Pilbara lawn ornament.
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