BituChem has replaced its diesel fleet with three Mitsubishi EDiA EX electric forklifts.

The bitumen maker was looking to reduce its emissions and improve sustainability as it sought to future-proof its materials handling fleet.

Paul Paschali, director at BituChem says: “We wanted to reduce our carbon footprint and swapping to electric trucks was an easy and effective way to do our bit. (Mitsubishi dealer) HFT knows our business and provided trucks that work well with the challenges on our site. We needed forklifts that could work indoors and outdoors, carrying bulky loads, while coping well on uneven ground.”

HFT delivered three 2.5 T EDiA EX electric forklifts. The trucks are used for loading and unloading, carrying pallets, barrels and drums of chemicals around a busy site six days a week.

“EDiA is a nimble truck, but powerful with it,” says Rob Perry, sales manager at HFT. “It has great ingress protection against water and dust, with fewer moving parts, so these trucks excel at working in all weathers as the risk of damage is much lower.

“We added a hydraulic accumulator to the EDiA EX trucks to increase suspension and reduce bounce to ensure there are no broken pallets,” he says. “It also makes it more comfortable for the operators.”

The trucks were fitted with blue safety spotlights to alert pedestrians of a truck’s presence, which is essential when working indoors near busy intersections, like the ends of aisles.

“The electric trucks are really quiet, so the blue spotlights help any pedestrians working nearby to be aware of approaching vehicles,” says John Shirley, site manager at BituChem. “We have some other great features that we didn’t have with diesel, like the automatic fork adjustment. This allows the operators to pick up different-sized pallets without having to get off the truck and manually adjust the forks, which saves them a huge amount of time.”

BituChem’s new forklifts use lead acid batteries which can be charged after shifts to ensure high operational availability. “The batteries easily last three days from charging, which is great as we can maintain our productivity levels with the added benefit of no emissions and quieter machines,” says Shirley.