Bucyrus International, the world leader in walking dragline design and manufacturing, announced today the signing of a new machine contract with BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA), Australia for supply of a new 8750 walking dragline. BMA has extensive experience with Bucyrus’ machines and BMA officials have once decided that a Bucyrus dragline provides the best solution for their long-term production requirements. While the specific value of this contract has not been released, a dragline of this type and size will typically sell in the range of $150 to $200 million constructed.

There are currently 70 Bucyrus brand draglines operating in Australia. BMA owns over half of them making BMA the single largest owner of Bucyrus draglines in the world.

This new 8750 will weigh over 6,800 t and will carry a 106 m³ struck capacity bucket. With a rated suspended load (RSL) capacity of 324,322 kg this dragline will be one of the largest draglines operating in the world today.

Bucyrus supports BMA’s various mine operations through its extensive subsidiary operations in Australia. Tim Sullivan, Bucyrus’ President and CEO, stated, “BMA follows a rigorous and thorough review process for evaluating and purchasing its heavy mining equipment. Although Bucyrus and BMA have forged a strong business relationship over many years, we (Bucyrus) still underwent extensive scrutiny of our design, manufacturing and product support capabilities during their dragline review process. The result is that BMA reaffirmed Bucyrus’ market leadership by purchasing another worldclass Bucyrus dragline.”