SAN ANTONIO – Caterpillar Inc. is investing millions of dollars to create a new industrial engine, so more job opportunities could be coming to South Central Texas.
The company recently announced a new $90 million investment to prepare its facilities in both Schertz and Seguin to produce the new C13D Industrial Engine.
“It’s more power. It’s significantly more fuel efficient. It’s cleaner in terms of its emissions footprint,” Mark Stratton, vice president and general manager of Caterpillar’s Industrial Power Systems Large Engines said.
Stratton said the investment will include new equipment installations.
“We’re investing in machining operations or machining equipment to be able to cut the major components, blocks, cylinder blocks and cylinder heads. And then the assembly of equipment, precision torque tools and test equipment to be able to build this next generation of engines,” Stratton said.
Caterpillar is the world’s leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, off-highway diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines and diesel-electric locomotives. The company employs about 2,200 people in the greater San Antonio area.
“We’ve been proud to be a part of the community for the last 15 years in what we’re doing. This investment really paves the way for us to continue to grow and create opportunity for the communities, for the families,” Stratton said.
With this latest investment, $70 million will go to the Schertz facility to make the new engine components and $20 million to the Seguin facility to assemble the engines.
“We continue to deploy new technology as part of our strategy as we go forward. We’re retooling the vast majority of this, like I say it’s a new engine. So we have new grippers to be able to hold the new block. We have new, replacing all of the computer systems that control this so they can handle the product variety, all the different new products that we’re going to be able to make,” Stratton said.
Stratton said limited production of the new engine starts next year and full production is slated to start in 2026.