Manganese mine in South Africa upgrades to an XMOR® XXX 00 bucket, gains 25% higher loading capacity.
Operation: Manganese mining
Excavator: CAT 6015
Bucket: XMOR® XXX 00
Benefits: 2.7 metric ton extra per load
A mining contractor in South Africa had a volume-based contract in a manganese mine, located in the Northern Cape Province. This is a remote location in semi-desert conditions, making it a harsh environment.
The contractor was running a fleet of CAT 6015. Before upgrading, the site was using an 8.1 m3 bucket and replaced it with an XMOR® XXX 00 bucket at 10.3 m3.
This gave around 25% increase in payload volume, corresponding to an increase of 2.7 metric tons for every load of the 1500 kg/m3 material.
The XMOR® XXX 00 bucket increased the payload to 13.6 metric tons per pass. The additional 819 kg in suspended load has no negative effect on the machine’s hydraulics as it was well within the rated weights of the machine.
Boosting profit per ton
This increase in production was realized without any significant difference in maintenance costs, meaning that the profit per ton saw a substantial improvement.
Since this was a three-year site contract, the customer ran the bucket for the full three years and produced above the targeted tonnage.
During this time, only the consumable parts such as Heel Segments, Wing Shrouds, and Teeth were replaced at regular intervals.
At the end of the contract in 2023, the bucket was taken back to the customer’s storage facility until being placed into a new site at the end of 2024.