Malabar Resources has completed the first full shears of coal from the longwall at its Maxwell Underground mine in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales, initiating production at what is planned to be the region’s newest and largest long-life longwall operation. The project, developed under New South Wales planning approval, transitions Maxwell from development drivage to longwall extraction using a high-capacity shearer and shield supports. This step moves the mine towards sustained longwall panel production, with implications for regional coal supply, ventilation design, strata control and long-term equipment scheduling.

R-evolution, Hexagon’s green-tech subsidiary, has begun its first missions using hybrid airborne imagery and LiDAR over a Vale legacy mine site as part of the Hexagon Green Cubes digital twin programme. The system fuses high-resolution optical data with LiDAR-derived elevation models to capture complex topography, waste dumps and water bodies in a single georeferenced dataset. For mine closure and reclamation teams, this enables more accurate volumetrics, subsidence detection and slope stability assessment than conventional photogrammetry alone.

ABB has signed an agreement with Harmony Gold to supply power and automation solutions for the Eva Copper project in Queensland, targeting higher plant efficiency as copper demand rises. The deal is expected to cover integrated electrification and process control systems for the greenfield operation, enabling coordinated management of crushers, mills and material handling. For engineers, the move signals continued investment in high-availability electrical infrastructure and digital control at large-scale Australian copper projects as they move from design to execution.