The first of Komatsu’s largest-ever hydraulic excavators, the PC9000, has made its journey across the Atlantic Ocean – with a stop at the Port of Galveston in Texas – and is now in action at an oil sands mine in Canada.
The nearly 2-million-pound behemoth began its 8,700-mile journey over road, river and ocean in winter after being manufactured at Komatsu Germany Mining Division’s factory in Düsseldorf.
(You can watch the excavator's journey, assembly and operation on videos at the end of this story.)
From the factory, the excavator’s 31 components were taken by a convoy of tractor trailers through city streets at night to be loaded onto a barge on the Rhine River. The barge traveled the North Sea and crossed the Atlantic Ocean, landing in Galveston. There the components were again loaded onto tractor trailers and transported cross country to Suncor’s Fort Hills mine in Alberta, Canada.
Assembly by SMS Equipment technicians and Komatsu engineers took about six weeks, with cranes lifting the components into place and workers on aerial lifts bolting the parts into place. On May 1, Komatsu and SMS officially handed over the new excavator to Suncor, a customer of SMS. The mining company not only gets the first PC9000 but will get another in July. Komatsu plans to launch the excavator commercially worldwide in 2026.
“The PC9000 is set to transform the future of mining,” says Ansgar Thole, president and managing director of Komatsu Germany. “This new class of hydraulic mining excavator raises the bar for productivity, efficiency and performance, while enhancing operator comfort and safety.”
The PC9000 goes to work in Suncor's Fort Hills oil sands mine.Suncor
Komatsu does say that the PC9000 will have a larger bucket, longer reach and higher digging forces compared to previous PC series models. It is designed as a five-pass match for the company’s 980E ultra-large rigid-frame dump truck, which has a 363-metric-ton capacity and gross horsepower of 3,500. Komatsu says the excavator “enables double-sided loading for Autonomous Haulage Systems … significantly improving cycle times and lowering the overall cost-per-ton of material moved.”
The PC9000 was developed in partnership with Komatsu, SMS and Suncor. The companies have collaborated often in the past on new equipment, including Canada’s first Komatsu Autonomous Haulage System, the 980E haul truck and the first PC7000 front shovel.
Watch the Trans-Atlantic Journey of the PC9000
Check out the three videos below posted to Facebook by SMS Equipment, Komatsu and Suncor to see the various stages of the PC9000’s trans-Atlantic journey, from the factory to operating at its final stop.
Leaving the factory in Germany and arriving in Canada after traveling over road, river and ocean:
A time-lapse video condenses about six weeks of assembling the PC9000 into 25 seconds at its new home at Suncor’s Fort Hills oil sands mine in Alberta, Canada:
The first PC9000 goes to work at the Suncor mine:
