30% higher loading performance with XMOR® BHC buckets in West Virginia coal mine

A metallurgical coal miner in West Virginia, USA, was an early adopter of the XMOR^® bucket concept. Today, they have six machines equipped with XMOR^® BHC buckets. Their machines range in size from 120-300 metric tons, equipped with 9-19 m3 XMOR^® BHC buckets.

One such example is a Komatsu PC2000 with a 14 m3 (18.25 yd3) XMOR^® BHC bucket, which replaced a conventional 11.7 m3 (15.3 yd³) bucket. This machine is operating as a mountaintop overburden removal unit, stripping blasted trap rock to expose the coal seam below.

The 14 m³ XMOR^® BHC bucket is able to load 150-ton trucks in as few as six passes, achieving a full two passes saved per truck. This significantly improves loading and overall cycle times, allowing for around 30% more material to be moved per shift. 

This mining customer quickly realized the return on investment (ROI) of the XMOR^® BHC buckets when compared to their conventional attachments.

Once they put their XMOR^® buckets to work, this miner closely monitored them to track their structural integrity and ability to resist wear while working more than 20 hours per day, 5 days a week. Through collaboration with AMI Attachments, they now have XMOR^® buckets lasting up to 8,500 hours in a single service life.

Once the bucket wears thin, it is returned to AMI Attachments for a rebuild, where the entire lower 2/3 section is replaced, while maintaining the existing upper 1/3 section. 

The bucket is then put back into service for another working cycle. By taking advantage of this rebuild strategy, the miner is able to reduce the total cost of machine and bucket ownership while having the most productive loading unit possible.

This miner is now looking to purchase additional XMOR^® buckets for other machines in their fleet and rotating out existing XMOR^® buckets for rebuild at AMI Attachments’ facility before returning them to service.