Cummins Asia Pacific Magazine - Issue 1 2023

Powering into the fut
For a fleet that hauls up to 300,000 cartons of bananas a week out of north
Queensland and has a monthly fuel bill of $3.5 million, future power options are
obviously high on the agenda of Blenners Transport.
Les Blennerhassett, head of the Tullybased
family company he started in 1988
with wife Judy, realises that while diesel
will dominate for a long time yet, he must
also look closely at next generation
power options.
Higher productivity vehicles such as
38-pallet B-doubles, achieved under
PBS (Performance Based Standards)
guidelines, are another priority for a
company with massive involvement in the
banana industry in north Queensland.
Blenners currently operates 185
Kenworths, around 100 of which are
linehaul B-double and roadtrain units
with Cummins X15 Euro 5 power – a
specification providing the high utilisation
needed to move the tidal wave of
bananas from north Queensland to
Australia-wide markets.
More than 200 Cummins engines
The strong relationship with Cummins has
seen more than 200 red engines specified
by Blenners in Kenworths since 2008.
Twenty-two roadtrains alone are dedicated
to banana haulage across the country
to Perth, WA. Overall, Blenners moves
around 60% of north Queensland bananas
to the capital cities – a task that is carried
out 52 weeks of the year since bananas
are not seasonal.
Bananas aren’t the only high volume
fruit transported by Blenners from north
Queensland. “We had to diversify our
customer base in 2006 after Cyclone Larry
destroyed most of the banana crop. We
went from doing 110 loads a week to four
loads,” Les Blennerhassett recalls.
Blenners this year transported more than
100 pallets of seedless lemons a day out
of the Mareeba region on the Atherton
Tablelands during the peak period, while
thousands of pallets of mangoes and
avocadoes will be moved during
their peak.
With a monthly fuel bill totalling $3.5
million, any measure to improve fuel
consumption just a fraction is looked at
closely by the Blenners team.
The next generation 15-litre Cummins
X15D, unveiled at the 2023 Brisbane Truck
Show, will be the next major engine step
for the fleet. Reports from field trials of
a fuel consumption improvement of up
to 8 per cent over the current best X15
obviously has huge appeal.
While the diesel truck engine still
has a long life ahead of it, especially
in Australia’s challenging operating
environment, studying alternative
powertrain technologies and their impact
on carbon reduction is of interest to Les
Blennerhassett.
Hydrogen ICE in Blenners’ sights
He sees Cummins’ much-discussed
hydrogen-fuelled internal combustion
engine currently under development as
a strong contender for the future. Having
a 15-litre ICE running on hydrogen and
virtually eliminating CO2 emissions has
advantages over other carbon reduction
technologies for heavy truck operations.
The familiarity of internal combustion is a
big plus: There’s no reinventing the wheel,
rather the base diesel engine is adapted
for an alternative fuel, greatly simplifying
the installation of the 15-litre platform into
an existing truck.
30 | CUMMINS ASIA PACIFIC MAGAZINE | ISSUE 1 2023