OREANDA-NEWS. August 10, 2012. GE Mining announced it has completed the acquisition of the assets of Fairchild International, a leading manufacturer of underground mining vehicles located in Glen Lyn, Virginia. The new legal business name for the acquisition is GE-Fairchild LLC.

GE-Fairchild LLC will employ approximately 140 persons and manufacture a wide range of underground mining equipment, including diesel and battery-powered scoops, continuous miners, haulage systems, shield haulers, and maintenance vehicles.

“Becoming part of the GE Mining team is a very proud moment in our nearly half-century history,” said Myrleen Fairchild, President of Fairchild International. “We look forward to contributing to GE Mining’s global growth through the continued development of Fairchild equipment.”

GE Mining, a business unit of GE Transportation, utilizes the people, technologies, and products from across GE to help its customers solve their toughest mining challenges. GE Mining helps mines work better by providing innovative solutions in critical areas such as power, water and productivity.

With this acquisition of the assets of Fairchild International, GE Mining will expand its product offering to underground mining and grow the customer base beyond its core U.S. market to serve mining customers worldwide. With its electric propulsion and state-of-the-art energy storage systems, GE Mining will be able to deliver higher efficiency and productivity to mining customers worldwide while lowering fuel use, emissions and life-cycle cost.

“We highly value the industry knowledge and expertise in designing, building and servicing underground mining equipment that Fairchild brings to GE Mining,” said Lorenzo Simonelli, President and CEO of GE Transportation. “With GE’s global reach, technology leadership in clean propulsion and energy storage systems, and world-class system integration capabilities, we will bring the next generation of top performing underground mining equipment to customers worldwide.”

The acquisition is part of a development program announced in May to expand GE Mining’s product offering to address approximately 35% of the underground mining value chain through the acquisitions of Industrea Ltd. and Fairchild International. The Industrea acquisition is still in process.

Each of these companies is well positioned in dynamic growth regions for mining, including Australia, China (Industrea), and the United States (GE-Fairchild LLC). GE Mining will enable these regionally focused enterprises to reach a global customer base with enhanced products based on GE’s clean propulsion systems, energy storage offering, and world-class system integration capabilities. Both businesses will benefit from GE’s lean manufacturing and effective global supply chain management.

GE-Fairchild LLC will join GE Mining in exhibiting at MINExpo Sept. 24 to 26 in Las Vegas.