A single Liebherr excavator has shifted 17 million bank cubic metres at a coal mine in the New South Wales Hunter Valley over 12 months, the most any R 9600 has moved in a year, according to Thiess.
The 600-tonne machine ran for 6,840 operating hours at MACH Energy’s Mount Pleasant Operation, near Muswellbrook in the Upper Hunter, working out to roughly 2,485 bank cubic metres for every hour it dug. Mining services contractor Thiess has held the contract at the site since 2017.
“The result reflects the capability and collaboration of teams across operations, maintenance, technical services and planning,” Thiess group executive Australia East Rae O’Brien said.
“Achieving a world record of this scale requires consistent execution over time.”
The R 9600 went to work in July 2025 and set a monthly production record at the site before the year was out. Holding that rate across the full 12 months came down to availability, with maintenance crews chasing reliability, technical services planning the dig paths and operations tuning haulage to keep trucks under the bucket.
The crew also passed 745 days without a lost time injury over the same stretch.
“The achievement was built on disciplined execution. We challenged ourselves to have a ‘be better’ mindset every day, looking for ways to work smarter, safer and more efficiently,” Thiess Mount Pleasant Operation project manager Ryan Fox said.
“The team’s ability to move this volume shows how seriously we take our motto: manage the minutes, because minutes matter and seconds count.
“We strive for optimal performance every shift, and this result shows what our people and machines can achieve together.”