Freeport has submitted an Environmental Impact Assessment to Chile’s SEIA for a US$7.5 billion project to extend Minera El Abra’s Sulfolix sulphide heap leach operations and build a new concentrator plant. The plan includes a full transition from current water sources to desalinated seawater, requiring major new desalination and water conveyance infrastructure on site. For mine planners and process engineers, the shift implies re-optimisation of leach–concentrator integration, water balance, and permitting timelines for long‑term copper production in northern Chile.

BHP chief executive Mike Henry will step down after five years in the role, during which he drove the $9.6 billion acquisition of OZ Minerals and approved multi‑billion‑dollar investments in the Jansen potash project in Saskatchewan and the South Flank iron ore mine in Western Australia. His tenure saw BHP complete its unification into a single Australian‑listed company and exit thermal coal assets such as Cerrejón and Mt Arthur. For geotechnical and mining engineers, his strategy entrenched large‑scale, long‑life bulk commodity operations and potash as core design and project pipelines.

Southern Cross Gold has reported its highest-grade shallow gold intersection to date at the Apollo prospect, part of its Sunday Creek project in Victoria, signalling further upside in near-surface mineralisation. The result comes from ongoing diamond drilling targeting epizonal gold–antimony veins, with Apollo sitting along strike from the Rising Sun and Christina prospects within the same structural corridor. For mine planners and geotechs, the shallow, high-grade nature of the intercept strengthens the case for potential open-pit starter scenarios and tighter geotechnical characterisation of vein-hosted ground conditions.