Thursday’s delivery to the mine was just one of two buckets recently ordered by BMA. The other bucket was built at Bradken’s Ipswich facility and transported to the Bowen Basin in November.

Bradken mining general manager Enda Sheridan said the company’s new facility at Mackay had facilitated the timely delivery of the two dragline buckets to Saraji within a month.

The Saraji opencut mine, located 24km south of Peak Downs mine, produces five million tonnes of high grade coking coal a year. The mine uses four draglines supplemented by truck/shovel stripping operations. Coal is transported to the mine preparation plant by eight 160t coal haulers.

Bradken counts BMA, along with Xstrata, Rio Tinto and Ensham Resources, among its Bowen Basin customers.

Sheridan said Bradken will open its new sales office at Emerald in February to ensure it was available to support the needs of the Bowen Basin and meet rising demand – particularly for dragline buckets and GET.

The 3,000 square metre facilities at Mackay – comprising of sales and distribution centre, warehouse and workshops – opened in June 2005.

The bucket workshop boasts a 100t overhead crane providing the largest dual lifting capacity in Mackay. The warehouse has the capacity to store 1000t of stock.

Sheridan said that the facility had been purpose-built to handle dragline bucket fabrication and refurbishment.

Bradken has delivered more than 445 buckets to the Australian mining industry and has been in business for 80 years.