Sandvik order pushes Kamoa-Kakula underground fleet past 100 units

Sandvik has received an order from Kamoa Copper SA to supply 19 Toro trucks and loaders to the Kamoa-Kakula complex in the Democratic Republic of Congo, expanding one of the world's largest underground Sandvik fleets at a mine where the equipment has operated since 2019.

Sandvik will deliver 12 Toro TH663i trucks and seven Toro LH621i loaders, two of which will be equipped with AutoMine autonomous haulage technology. The order was booked in the third quarter, with the first four trucks expected to arrive in the fourth quarter of 2026, a further 13 units in the first quarter of 2027, and the final two loaders in the third quarter of 2027. Kamoa Copper had also ordered three additional AutoMine Lite systems in May, which together with the mine's existing installation will expand its autonomous production capability to four systems.

Betting on volume, not just recovery

Kamoa-Kakula's copper production guidance had been set at 290,000 to 310,000 tonnes for 2026, with a target of approximately 500,000 tonnes from 2028. With this latest order, the active Sandvik fleet at Kamoa-Kakula would exceed 100 underground trucks, loaders and drills. "Our decision to reinvest in Sandvik equipment is based on years of proven operational performance at Kamoa-Kakula," said Annebel Oosthuizen, managing director at Kamoa Copper SA.

A vote of confidence mid-recovery

The scale of the new order was notable given that it came only months after Ivanhoe had sharply cut Kamoa-Kakula's near-term production guidance. Committing to more than a dozen additional pieces of heavy underground equipment, on a delivery schedule stretching into 2027, signalled that Kamoa Copper's operators expected the mine's underground development to keep expanding steadily even through a period of reduced output, rather than pausing capital investment until the recovery was fully proven. The continued push towards autonomous haulage also reflected a broader trend across large African underground mines, where labour costs, safety requirements and the sheer scale of material movement needed to hit long-run production targets increasingly favour automated over manually operated fleets.

Sources

• International Mining: Sandvik underground fleet at Kamoa-Kakula now exceeds 100 units with latest order, 25 Aug 2026

Photo: Malachite copper ore from the Democratic Republic of Congo's copperbelt. Miguel Calvo, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.