Dalian Huarui Heavy Industry is spread across a number of areas but one of those is the creation of gearboxes and reduction gears for wind turbines.

 

It has made little secret of it plans to become a greater global player and Australia is a key market it is looking at.

 

So far DHHI has been mostly involved with the Australian mining market. It has already provided bulk material handling equipment for BHP's Groote Eylandt manganese operation, the Roy Hill iron ore project in Western Australia's Pilbara region and Rio Tinto's Weipa alumina operation in Queensland.

 

That equipment has ranged from ship loaders, ship unloaders, stackers, reclaimers and car dumpers.

 

The company's operations go much further afield than that. It is one of two companies that makes the crankshafts for the Valemax iron ore carriers heading from Brazil to China.

 

DHHI also makes polar cranes and has one sitting its yard awaiting despatch to a nuclear station in the UK. A polar crane is similar to a gantry crane except that it is mounted on a circular track. 

 

They usually sit within the domed interior of a nuclear power plant and it can be used for reactor head removal and replacement and for refuelling operations.

 

The company has nine major product areas: metallurgical machinery, hoisting machinery, bulk material handling machinery, port machinery, energy machinery, drive and control systems, marine components, engineering machinery and offshore engineering machinery.

 

DHHI chairman Cong Hong said the company wanted to grow its international business.

 

"DHHI's aim is to develop the company into an international service-oriented manufacturing enterprise group with a core value of high end heavy equipment both in research and fabrication," he said.

 

Cong said the company aimed to have international business making up 40% of revenue in five years and engineering, procurement and construction business making up 20%.

 

A core part of that is meeting the standards of the markets it is trying to enter, something DHHI chief engineer Zou Sheng said the company was focusing on.

 

He said during the projects it had already done with Australian businesses it had gained a better understanding of Australian rules and regulations as well as equipment standards.

 

"Australia has the most comprehensive and strict equipment standards in the world, emphasising safety, environmental protection and efficiency," Zou said.

 

"With regard to safety, personal safety comes first and it is followed by environmental safety.

 

"Through years of practice DHHI has built a better understanding about the equipment standards in Australia.

 

"Our design philosophy has also changed.

 

"First of all we arrange design materials for bulk material handling machinery in descending order of importance with the most important first."

 

Those categories are Australian rules and regulations, the contract of the project and technical specifications, Australian standards and criteria, and international standards and criteria.

 

"We perform risk assessment for the design," Zou said.

 

Adhering to deadlines is also important. On August 29 DHHI held a ceremony to mark the placement of a ship unloader for Ploce Port in Croatia. Much was made during the ceremony of the fact that DHHI worked through several key holidays to ensure the delivery schedule was met. It was similar story for the work it did for Roy Hill.

 

That ceremony was chased on the following day by a signing ceremony for a US$29 million contract under which Nippon Steel was buying some steel milling equipment from DHHI. 

 

That's right - a Japanese company buying steel making equipment from a Chinese company.

 

Walking through DHHI's vast workshops, it was interesting to note that much of the engineering equipment was from Europe. The attitude is to get the best equipment available for the job.