Lima South Quarry Group loads trucks in half the time with the XMOR® BHC80 bucket

Lima South Quarry Group in Australia operates a quarry that supplies hornsfel blue metal aggregates, an abrasive fine-grained rock with high hardness used for rail ballast, concrete, asphalt and sealing applications.  

The Australian Quarry Magazine published an article outlining the success they have seen with a XMOR^® BHC 80 bucket on the 7th of May 2025. 

The quarry has a CAT 374 excavator which used to have a very standard 3.5 m3 bucket. When it was time for replacing this worn-out bucket, they wanted to maximize production while minimizing wear and maintenance.  

Lima learned about XMOR^® buckets from the ONTRAC Group, which  offered the BHC 80, a 5.1 m³ bucket that weighs around 3,720 kg. This would give them an increase of 1.6 m³ capacity per bucket, which equated to around an extra 3 tonnes per swing. 

“ONTRAC did a study to determine how much value the XMOR^® bucket could bring,” says Lima South’s Quarry Manager Jeremy Vegter. “They worked out that there would be roughly an extra three tonnes moved with each swing of the bucket. The current bucket could fill a truck in around eight to nine passes. With the XMOR^®, it could do it in four, sometimes five passes.” 

This had a flow-on effect throughout the quarry, as certain jobs could be run with one less haul truck. It also cut down on the amount of overtime, as the load and haul team could move the same amount of material in 8 hours instead of 12. 

XMOR^® buckets are designed with an Inverted Keel that reduces drag and wear on the bucket’s floor when loading, and Curved Heel Shrouds which also reduce wear. Lima South has seen a reduction in maintenance after switching to the XMOR^® BHC80 bucket. 

“We’ve had no dramas with it, and ONTRAC has been on site making sure it’s doing everything it should be,” says Vegter.