Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers will conduct a massive mining and earthmoving equipment auction on September 27, 2012 during the Company’s grand opening auction at its new permanent auction site in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. More than 180 pieces of mining and earthmoving equipment are already featured in the auction, including more than 60 Caterpillar D11 crawler tractors, more than 35 Caterpillar 777 rock trucks, more than 30 wheel loaders and more—selections so large that they’re rarely seen in the heavy equipment industry in a single sale.

The September 27 unreserved public auction, which is set to take place one day after the completion

of MINExpo International 2012 in Las Vegas, is a divestiture of non-strategic equipment from West Virginia based Trinity Coal Corporation.

“We have an unprecedented number of D11’s featured in our September Raleigh-Durham auction. In fact, this is more D11’s than we’ve sold in the past four years of unreserved industrial auctions combined,” said John Fairley, Regional Sales Manager, Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers. “This large selection of mining and earthmoving equipment is sure to catch the attention of both domestic and international buyers. For those who are looking for anything from big wheel loaders and crawler tractors to massive rock trucks and motor graders—this auction showcases Ritchie Bros. as the place to go when you need mining equipment. And, as with all of our auctions, each item will sell to the highest bidder, regardless of price—with no minimum bids or reserve prices.”

“Trinity Coal Corp. had been using the equipment at their coking and thermal coal mining complexes in Kentucky and West Virginia,” said David Stetson, Chief Restructuring Officer for Trinity Coal Corp.

“Those in the mining industry will know D11’s are primarily mass earthmoving machines. The fleet is composed of ’big rock job’ type machines that we primarily used to remove overburden at our coal operations in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia,” added Mr. Stetson. “At one time, our D11 fleet was the largest fleet operating anywhere in the U.S.”

After being in operation for a number of years, some of the Caterpillar units are currently undergoing a

refurbishing process in preparation for the September auction. All powertrain and undercarriage updates are being conducted by authorized CAT dealers. Detailed equipment information, including high-resolution photos of the equipment, is available on our website at www.rbauction.com/bigiron.

According to Stetson, companies looking for brand new equipment may have to face a wait time before acquiring a machine to put to work. “If you’re looking for a brand new D11 (from the manufacturer), you’ll have to add your name to a wait list and the queue is currently long due to high demand for mining equipment in various regions. At the September auction in North Carolina, people will have the opportunity to find a large selection of well-maintained equipment — it’s a big opportunity to acquire big iron that you can potentially put to work the following day after the auction,” added Mr.Stetson. “There is currently high demand for this type of equipment across the globe, in Canada, Latin America, Asia and even India—with Ritchie Bros. in charge of the auction, buyers in all of these regions and beyond will have an opportunity to acquire quality earthmoving equipment at reasonable prices.”

For more information, please visit www.rbauction.com.

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