In Jules Verne’s novel, they had to walk to the center of the Earth. But Azzaya relies on the 630hp of a Mercedes-Benz Arocs. The 28-year-old Mongolian drives a road train 1,300 meters underground in one of the world’s largest copper mines.
Azzaya has forgotten whether it’s day or night, and the fact that it’s freezing outside doesn’t bother her either. After all, it’s always dark at home, and the thermometer shows a constant 22 degrees Celsius year-round. The 28-year-old works 1,300 meters underground in the Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in southern Mongolia, which, thanks to the electric car boom, will soon be one of the largest in the world.
While her 1,000 colleagues have to struggle through dirt and dust for twelve hours per shift, digging 30,000 tons of ore from the ground every day (and soon as many as 95,000 tons), she sits in the air-conditioned cab of her Mercedes-Benz Arocs, steering a road train with her delicate, finely manicured fingers through the narrow tunnels, where there’s often no more than 50 centimeters of space on either side. And she does this with a 30-meter-long truck and a 160-ton load on her back.
Mercedes Arocs: Speed limited to 20 km/h
Although the speed in the mine’s 200-kilometer-long tunnels is limited to 20 km/h, and their truck is even electronically regulated, it takes vision and dexterity to steer the beast safely through this labyrinth—especially since it’s pitch black except at the intersections, and a thick layer of dust constantly hangs in the air, causing their LED headlights to cast only dim cones of light.
Image: Thomas Geiger / Fabian Hoberg
Azzaya is not the exception in this job, but the rule. Two years after mining began, there are four road trains operating down here, and soon there will be two dozen – and the vast majority of the drivers are women like Azzaya, who even down here in Middle-earth wears subtle makeup under her respirator. Half of the other miners out there are already women, and soon that number will rise to 70 percent. It’s not for nothing that every other portable toilet is pink, squeezed into niches every few hundred meters. And it’s not without reason that the vehicle importer MSM Group in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, currently has an Arocs painted all over pink, advertising “Women in Mining”.
The only thing the truck driver has in common with her colleagues out in the mine and on the ground is her uniform. Even behind the wheel, she wears a helmet and miner’s lamp, and has strapped the self-rescuer with the artificial lung to her miner’s harness.
No trucker look
Just as their work clothes bear no resemblance to the typical trucker look, their truck isn’t off-the-shelf either. Stretched across 15 axles with a total of 56 wheels, the construction site truck has become a special vehicle on its way from the Mercedes-Benz plant in Wörth to the Far East, which they have extensively modified for underground use.
Image: Thomas Geiger / Fabian Hoberg
Over half of the underground workers are women, and the proportion is even higher in the road train cabins. That’s why pink trucks are now driving around, promoting “Women in Mining”.
This starts with the radar, which helps Azzaya keep the colossus on course and at a safe distance from the rough concrete walls, continues with the automatic fire extinguishing system and the cabin air filter, and ends with the reinforced frame and brakes. While the Arocs is designed for a total weight of 41 tons when used on German roads, a road train weighs six times that. After all, the Benz bull is hauling two trailers, each loaded with 80 tons of ore.
It’s no wonder that the 15.6-liter six-cylinder engine, despite producing 625hp, 3000Nm, and four driven axles, has to work hard when climbing even the slightest incline. And it’s no wonder that in Wörth they built a huge cooling tower behind the cab to prevent the engine and clutch from burning up during the drudgery.
Driving the ore to the surface is therefore out of the question – even though there’s now a three-kilometer-long ramp leading to the surface. Instead, Azzaya simply parks her truck under a gigantic chute, from which she uses a joystick to drop chunks onto her bed, some of which are as big as a small car. These are mined on the level above, where blasting takes place twice a day, allowing the ore to slowly slide down from above.
Image: Thomas Geiger / Fabian Hoberg
With great sensitivity, she pulls her approximately 30-meter-long road train forward at walking pace until the ore is evenly distributed in the two enormous steel tanks. Then she drives it on a three-kilometer circuit to the next bunker, from where it currently falls into a giant material elevator and is later transported upwards on a seemingly endless conveyor belt. And then the fun starts all over again – and she makes the circuit about 30 times per shift.
Endless roundabout
When the mine, which took almost 20 years to set up, is running at full capacity, a road train will roll every three minutes along this endless roundabout 1,300 meters underground. And it will do so 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 52 weeks a year. Apart from the two short blasting breaks, usually at shift change at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m., the mine never stops, and neither do the trucks. That’s why they’ve set up a complete workshop underground and, of course, a gas station. If all goes well, the production will soon be increased to 35 million tons a year, which will be processed, crushed, and shipped to China in huge halls above.
There, in the best-case scenario, 30 kilos of copper are extracted from one ton of ore, along with up to 30 grams of gold and almost a dozen other precious metals. This is how mine operator Rio Tinto is satisfying the hunger for materials among Generation E, whose electric cars are driving a huge boom in demand. Each battery-powered car contains around 80 kilos of copper, four times more than a combustion engine car. And because each wind turbine requires five tons and the power grid is being expanded everywhere, the demand for copper is constantly rising. And here in Oyu Tolgoi, they want to satisfy this demand: they plan to dig 500,000 tons of copper out of the ground every year – enough for 16,400 electric cars or 1,600 wind turbines every day.
Image: Thomas Geiger / Fabian Hoberg
Because there isn’t enough energy in Mongolia, the ore is transported to China for further processing in trucks like this one. The border is only 80 kilometers away.
Azzaya has plenty of time to ponder many topics. Because as much as she has to concentrate while driving through the endless bottleneck, vigilantly checking the mirror to make sure the rear axles are steering, her job is monotonous, and fatigue sometimes overwhelms her. After all, it’s always night here and always toasty warm. And because there’s Wi-Fi underground but her Arocs doesn’t have a radio, she eventually starts singing loudly to keep herself awake.
No truck driver romance
Of course, this has little to do with the romanticism of long-distance truck driving, but she wouldn’t dream of swapping places with the truckers who transport copper ore by the hundreds in old trucks from China or Russia across the border to China, just 80 kilometers away. Firstly, her day ends where it began in the morning, and secondly, she doesn’t have to sweat in temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius in summer or freeze in temperatures below 30 degrees Celsius in winter, but works at a constant 22 degrees Celsius. And above all, she earns about twice as much as her colleagues up on Earth. And on top of that, she can feel a bit like Jules Verne on the way to the center of the Earth or the hobbits in Middle-earth.
Originally published on: www.autobild.de
