Belarusian BelAZ celebrates 220-tonne truck's 2,000 production milestone

The milestone truck will be named after BelAZ's first director Nikolai Derevyanko, who ran the enterprise in 1958-1961. Under his leadership the company established the office of the chief designer, which gave rise to BelAZ's design engineering school, and made a prototype of the 27-tonne BelAZ-540 truck, which became a technical breakthrough.

BelAZ Director General Sergei Nikiforovich said: “We've started a tradition of naming vehicles after prominent BelAZ employees. All our milestone dump trucks will be named after them. BelAZ is responsible for the quality of each and every haul truck and will monitor the performance of the milestone vehicle particularly closely. We are convinced that the new owner will ensure the effective operation of Belarusian vehicles in Kuzbass.”

Haul trucks with the carrying capacity of 220 tonnes are a top seller. For several years BelAZ has been occupying half of this segment of the world market. Every year over 150 BelAZ-7530 haul trucks roll off the assembly line. These vehicles have earned excellent reputation in open pits and coal mines of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Serbia, South Africa, and other countries. Over 1,200 vehicles of the BelAZ-7530 series operate in the Russian Federation.

Vitaly Petrov, Director for Transport of the Russian company AO Stroyservis, took part in the solemn event dedicated to the 2,000th haul truck. He received a symbolic key to the new vehicle. The executive said: “The production of the 2,000th BelAZ truck is an important event for us because this model is the staple one in our vehicle fleet. I am confident this haul truck will demonstrate great performance because your labor, your soul, and your attitude to business have been invested in it. I wish BelAZ's team further labor victories and accomplishments.”

Stroyservis Company is a strategic partner of BelAZ and a leading coal mining company in the Russian Federation. At present the company uses about 250 haul trucks. BelAZ will ship another 15 new 220-tonne haul trucks to the Russian company in early 2023.

The history of haul trucks able to carry 200-220 tonnes of freight began in 1992-1994 when a prototype and the first test batch of these haul trucks were made. Batch production of the new 220-tonne truck BelAZ-75306 began in 2003. It had been designed taking into account the experience of operation of previous-generation models. The 100th BelAZ-7530 truck rolled off the assembly line in August 2005. The 500th truck was made in 2011, the 1,000th in April 2015, and the 1,500th in August 2019.