Profile: Bucyrus International, Inc. (BUCY.O)

Bucyrus International, Inc., incorporated in 1927, designs, manufactures mining equipment for the extraction of coal, copper, oil sands, iron ore and other minerals in mining centers throughout the world. In addition to the manufacture of original equipment, the Company also provides the aftermarket replacement parts and service for equipment. The Company operates in two business segments: surface mining and underground mining. As of December 31, 2008, all of the Company’s products and services were marketed under a single name, Bucyrus. The Company’s manufacturing facilities include Australia, China, Germany, Poland and the United States, and service and sales centers include Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, England, India, Mexico, Peru, Russia, South Africa and the United States. In December 2008, the Company announced that it has completed the acquisition of OKD, Bastro a.s. (Bastro). Bastro is an engineering services and manufacturing support company located in the Czech Republic. In October 2008, it acquired Appalachian Mine Sales, Inc., a belt conveyor manufacturer.

Surface Mining

The Company designs, manufactures and markets draglines, electric mining shovels and rotary blasthole drills used for surface mining and provide the aftermarket replacement parts and service for these machines. The Company manufactures its machines and its aftermarket parts at its facilities in South Milwaukee and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Draglines are primarily used in coal mining applications to remove overburden (the rock and soil that lies above the coal being mined) by dragging a large bucket through the overburden and carrying it away. The Company’s draglines weigh from 1,150 to 8,400 tons, and are typically described in terms of their bucket size, which can range from 9 to 152 cubic yards.

Mining shovels are primarily used to load copper, coal, oil sands, iron ore, other mineral bearing materials, overburden, or rock into trucks. There are two basic types of mining shovels: electric and hydraulic. Electric mining shovels are able to handle load, allowing them to move greater volumes of rock and minerals, while hydraulic shovels are diesel powered, smaller. An electric mining shovel offers significantly lower cost per ton of mineral mined over a longer period of time as compared to a hydraulic shovel. Electric mining shovels are characterized in terms of hoisting capability and dipper or load capacity. The Company offers a full line of electric mining shovels, with available hoisting capability of up to 120 tons. Dipper capacities range from 9 to 80 cubic yards. The electric mining shovels have an average life of approximately 15 years.

The Company has developed the 495 Series shovels. The highlights of this series include planetary gear configuration, insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) electrics and a third rail swing system to enhance shovel. A fully modularized electrical room ships directly to the field to facilitate the field assembly process. Many surface mines require breakage of rock, overburden or ore by blasting with explosives. To accomplish this, it is necessary to bore out a pattern of holes in the ground area to be mined into which explosives are then placed. Rotary blasthole drills are used to drill these holes and are usually described in terms of the diameter of the hole they bore. The Company offers a line of rotary blasthole drills ranging in hole diameter size from 6 inches to 17.5 inches. The average life of a rotary blasthole drill is approximately 15 years.

The Company has an aftermarket business that supplies replacement and upgrade parts and services for its installed base of operating equipment. Its aftermarket offerings include engineered replacement parts, maintenance and repair labor, technical advice, refurbishment and relocation of machines, structural and mechanical engineering, non-destructive testing, repairs and rebuilds of machine components, product and component upgrades, turnkey assembly and equipment operation. The Company also distributes components, which are consumed in the normal course of operating these machines. A substantial portion of the Company’s international repair and maintenance services were provided through its global network of wholly owned foreign subsidiaries and overseas offices operating in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, England, India, Peru and South Africa.

Underground Mining

The Company supplies system solutions for underground coal mining worldwide. The original equipment and aftermarket parts are manufactured in Germany, the United States (Pennsylvania, Virginia and Alabama), and to a lesser extent, in Poland, China and Australia. The two methods of underground mining are longwall, and room and pillar mining.

The Company’s longwall equipment includes hydraulic roof supports and electro-hydraulic controls, automated plow systems, shearers, armored face conveyors and crushers. It offers a range of roof supports suitable for mining heights from 0.6 meter to 7.5 meter with support capacities in excess of 1,200 tons per shield. A complete roof support system can include from 50 to 225 roof support shields. The Company’s armored face conveyors (AFC) were designed for a variety of performance requirements in low, medium and high seams, and for short and long faces.

The Company offers a range of shearers for low, medium and high seams from 1.6 meter up to 5.8 meter, with production rates of up to 5,000 tons per hour. Its shearers are generally purchased in pairs and the pair has an average life of approximately 8 to 10 years. The Company’s automated plow systems have extraction and loading rates in seams of 0.6 meter to 1.8 meter resulting in mining rates of up to 1,500 tons per hour.

The Company’s room and pillar equipment offerings include continuous miners, feeder breakers, battery- and diesel-powered underground utility vehicles, continuous haulage systems, roof bolters and belt systems. Its continuous miners can be used for both soft- and hard-cutting applications. The Company offers a seamless family of continuous miners for both soft and hard cutting applications for seams from 0.8 meters to 5.2 meters. Continuous miners have an average life of approximately 10 to 15 years.

The Company’s continuous haulage systems can be implemented in operations with capacity of up to 38 tons per minute and continuous haulage systems have an average life of approximately 10 to 15 years. The Company’s underground feeder breakers have a production capacity of up to 1,800 tons per hour with a pick force of 45,400 kilogram. Its feeder breakers have an average life of approximately 10 to 15 years. The Company offers both battery-powered and diesel-powered haulage vehicles. Underground utility vehicles are self-loading vehicles used to clean roadways, haul supplies and perform other functions.

Along with the Company’s two main product groups, it offer solutions in the field of horizontal crushing equipment for coal and non-coal applications, such as aggregates typically used in road construction, potash and rock salt. The product range includes size reduction technology for primary crushing and scraper chain conveyors.

The Company competes with Joy Global Inc.