Artificial intelligence models from Toronto-based Stratum AI are now underpinning the publicly reported JORC mineral resource estimate for St Barbara’s operating Simberi gold mine in Papua New Guinea, in what is claimed as one of the first such applications globally. Developed jointly with Perth-based St Barbara, the models were used directly in resource estimation rather than as a parallel or shadow study. For geologists and resource modellers, this signals growing regulator and owner confidence in AI-derived domaining and grade interpolation workflows within formal reporting frameworks.

MINEXCHANGE 2027 SME Annual Conference & Expo will run from 28 February to 3 March 2027 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, bringing together thousands of mining professionals, students and suppliers. The event will feature more than 100 technical sessions spanning mine planning, drilling and blasting, mineral processing, tailings, automation and ESG. For engineers, it offers concentrated access to current practice, emerging technologies and peer case studies in a single venue-scale programme.

AngloGold Ashanti’s Obuasi gold mine in Ghana will commission a fourth Gekko InLine Leach Reactor (ILR) in 2027, expanding a circuit that already runs three ILRs alongside a BIOX® refractory ore treatment plant. The decision extends more than two decades of site experience with ILR technology, originally adopted at Obuasi in its early commercial rollout. Additional ILR capacity should increase gravity gold recovery from concentrates, reduce lock-up in the BIOX® circuit and give metallurgists more flexibility in treating variable high-sulphide ore.