On Monday 9th of May, Andre Keune drove his new Volvo FH16 700 horsepower truck off the Volvo stand at the Brisbane Truck Show and took it 4,500 kilometres across Australia to his base in Perth.
Andre Keune has been using Volvos, as part of his fleet, since he bought a Volvo F 12 back in the mid-1970s. His company Keune Transport is based in Perth but delivers all over Western Australia to places such as Port Hedland, Broome, and the communities in the Pilbara whose place-names are bywords of the Australian mining industry: Newman, Tom Price, Pannawonica, Brockman, Yandi, West Angelas, Area C and Hope Downs.
The journey to the mines is about 1,600 kilometres each way,’ says Andre, ‘and my drivers do that in 15-hour shifts in just under three days. They load ammonium nitrate from a fertilizer factory at Kwinana, south of Perth, which takes about four hours all up and then they’re off.’
The trucks go to the mines twice a week, every week. The iron ore and gold miners of Western Australia use a lot of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, but it’s not for growing vegetables! They’re mixing it with diesel to make blasting explosives. Andre Keune’s Volvos deliver this most vital of mining tools, to some of the most remote and inaccessible parts of the country, in conditions that would challenge any truck. Meanwhile, Andre’s other trucks are hauling triple freezer trailers up to Broome, a 4,600 kilometers round trip.