Crossfire operators running the D7E, says Valencia, agree that the machine is easy to control, that visibility from the cab is excellent and that the D7E's power and low-end torque are impressive.

Crossfire, headquartered in Ignacio, Colo., near Durango, was started in 2001 by Ezra Lee. The majority of the company's work is in the oilfield area of the San Juan Basin, but its 180 employees work in various divisions, including Trucking, Pipeline, Excavation, Seeding, Oil-Field Service and Crane Service.

Dolet Hills Lignite Uses D7E in Tough Applications
A Cat D7E test machine has been working at Dolet Hills Lignite Co., headquartered in Mansfield, La., since March 2009 and will remain with the company until late fall. Dolet Hills, with 200 employees, operates two lignite (brown coal) surface mines, which supply fuel to a nearby power plant.

Duties for the D7E at Dolet Hills include building roads for the company's fleet of off-highway haulers and maintaining work areas for large pre-strip machines, which move 10 million cubic yards of overburden annually.

"Our operators seem very pleased with the performance and operation of the D7E," says Dale Hill, director mine operations. "The machine has a lot of power."