Austin Engineering Limited says its South American business unit has successfully completed the manufacture and delivery of a Cat 7495 model dipper bucket to a Chile-based customer.

The previously announced electric rope shovel order is valued at ~A$2.5 million ($1.6 million) and was manufactured at Austin Chile’s facility in La Negra.

While Austin Chile has undertaken dipper and other bucket builds for South American customers, it is the first time it has manufactured a Cat 7495 dipper bucket for local delivery in Chile. The dipper weighs 86-t and can shift approximately 100 t of material per pass, the company says.

Austin purchased Australian bucket manufacturer Mainetec in 2022 to expand its bucket offering and market high value dipper buckets internationally to regions like the Americas where there is a large dipper bucket market to service the large-scale mining operations. This has included the export of a customised, Austin-designed, Armadillo electric rope shovel dipper bucket from Batam to the US, which is now in operation.

Since the acquisition of Mainetec, Austin has expanded its bucket offering abroad for bucket builds, rebuilds and services. It has developed unique bucket designs that improve operational efficiency and can be fitted to standard OEM rope shovels, it says. Using its global locations across APAC and the Americas, it can export them to any location in the world.

Austin CEO and Managing Director, David Singleton, said: “The first delivery of a Cat 7495 dipper bucket manufactured in Chile to a Chilean-based customer is a milestone for Austin and the team at La Negra. We have completed this build whilst simultaneously expanding the manufacturing facility to cope with the larger throughput that we expect in financial year 2026 and beyond.

“I’m pleased to see the bucket business growth that has followed the Mainetec acquisition into international markets like Chile. We continue to see further sales opportunities on the back of South America’s growing mining industry, particularly in copper, lithium and other critical minerals, and our local operations are ideally placed to become a key strategic partner for the region’s mining sector.”