Cat / Rio Tinto agreement for mining technology products

Caterpillar Inc. and Rio Tinto plc recently reached a three-year agreement for the Cat CAES and Aquila Drill and Dragline systems to be the preferred standard at the mining company’s open pit operations worldwide. The agreement covers nine Rio Tinto business units operating more than 30 mines in Australia, the United States, Canada and Namibia. Rio Tinto is expected to order more than 200 Caterpillar systems over the life of the agreement, which includes multi-year support.

The Caterpillar high-precision GPS mining technology products provide machine guidance and operator assistance as well as data collection of many production parameters. For truck loading operations, CAES displays a digital map of the orebody and material types to the loading machine operator for precise digging and loading. The Aquila Drill Manager improves blasthole drill efficiency as it guides the operator to precisely place holes and to use optimal drilling forces. The Aquila Dragline System is a comprehensive production monitoring system that tracks every bucket load.

More information is available at www.cat.com or www.riotinto.com.