Sandvik booked an order worth about 275 million Swedish kronor from Kamoa Copper on 25 August, covering trucks and loaders for the Kamoa-Kakula Copper Complex in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, two of which will carry its AutoMine system1. Kamoa Copper operates the mine and the Kamoa-Kakula complex underground takes the equipment. Deliveries run from the fourth quarter of 2026 to the third quarter of 2027.
The money needs reading carefully. 275 million Swedish kronor is the value of the whole order, trucks and loaders together, and Sandvik does not break out what the two automated machines cost2. Anyone quoting the full figure as the price of mining autonomy would be overstating it by an unknown margin.
AutoMine puts a loader under supervised automatic control in an underground drift, where the machine repeats a haul route that a person would otherwise drive in heat, dust and poor visibility. Underground mining reached this point ahead of most of the sector because the route is fixed, the environment is mapped, and nothing unexpected walks into it. Two units out of a full equipment order is the shape autonomy takes in an operating mine: bought as an increment against a production plan, delivered on the same schedule as the conventional kit, and judged on tonnes rather than on being autonomous.
