The machine was ordered by the Tahmoor Colliery in NSW and is due to be delivered to the mine in early March 2002.
The 12CM30, being built at Joy's Moss Vale facility in NSW, will take 31 weeks to build. Specialist gearboxes and motors are being imported from the US and Joy Australia is manufacturing the rest of the machine, including the drilling system, and assembling the finished product.
"The 12CM30 is an Australian design for a continuous miner," said sales director Steve Newson. "It is a miner-bolter developed on the back of Australian conditions."
The primary difference between this model and the 12CM12 is the short front-end, which cuts down on the amount of unsupported roof. The machine has a working height of up to 3.6m.
Joy has also recently sold its RS20 longwall control system to BHP Billiton's Crinum mine in central Queensland. This will take to four the state-of-the-art RS20 control systems fitted to Australian longwall faces.