| A new 146,400-lb dragline bucket heads to work in Texas. |
This VR dragline bucket weighs 146,400 lb and was built by local Texas fabricators, C&C Metals and Mackanan Fabrication in Conroe, as well as Buffalo Industrial Supplies in Buffalo, Texas. The decision to build the bucket in Texas was part of a corporate decision to build and support equipment with local suppliers in the specific territories where their customers are located.
This successful delivery is the culmination of a business decision by VR Steel to expand the company’s footprint into North America in 2012 after attending the MINExpo 2012 in Las Vegas. This is where its North American facilities were launched with the appointment of two vice presidents responsible for the marketing and sales of its award-winning earth moving equipment designs. Equipment includes dragline buckets, off-highway truck bodies, hydraulic face shovel buckets and dippers for rope shovels.
VR Steel established a warehouse facility in Conroe, where parts were shipped to from their South African factory, and has also established relationships with various businesses in the Houston area as well as other locations in the USA from where parts were procured. This will be the location of VR Steel’s main warehouse facility with satellite distribution in the areas where their customers are located. All procurement of material and parts will be located at this facility.
This company has come a long way since it opened its doors as a specialist steel distributor in 1992. Worldwide operations include a corporate head office in South Africa with a research and development hub facility of 323,000 sq-ft with a 135,000-sq-ft covered work area. It has an established workshop in Shanghai, China, and a newly established workshop 600 km west of Beijing in partnership with China-Coal Pingshou Coal Co. It has also recently opened an office in Santiago, Chile, to handle the South American market.
With the knowledge collected while assembling this bucket, VR Steel is confident that relations across the North American territory can only thrive.
