Hidden costs from traditional pivot pin maintenance on haul trucks, forestry harvesters and excavators are driving interest in Expander System’s oversized pivot pins with tapered sleeves, according to Nord-Lock Group head of sales Robin Persson. The retrofit design allows installation in worn pivot eyes without line boring or welding, using conical sleeves to create full-surface contact and reduce clearance growth. For mine maintenance teams, this can cut repeated pin replacement shutdowns and lower life-cycle costs on high-load joints such as dump body hinges, loader booms and articulation points.

Boron One’s updated PEA for the Piskanja underground boron project in southern Serbia lifts the after-tax IRR to 89% and NPV (10% discount) to US$558.8 million, with unchanged initial capex of US$79.9 million and a sub‑one‑year payback, but shortens mine life to 13 years and trims average annual EBITDA to US$87.7 million. The plan now targets average yearly output of 157,600 tonnes of colemanite, 83,800 tonnes of ulexite and 25,000 tonnes of boric acid, at all‑in sustaining costs of US$231.44 per tonne. The revised study incorporates new geotechnical testing, a 3D resource model by borate type and a binding offtake for at least 25,000 tonnes of boron products per year, subject to permitting and plant qualification.

Hycroft Mining has reported its highest-grade intercept yet at the Vortex zone in Nevada, with hole H26D-6175A cutting 19.6 m at 30.49 g/t gold and 1,726.72 g/t silver from 416.5 m, including 1.7 m at 347.07 g/t gold and 9,526.36 g/t silver from 433.2 m. The result extends high-grade mineralisation west and south, supporting studies of an underground start-up ahead of a $3.4 billion large-scale milling project modelled by BMO Capital Markets. Respec is designing a conceptual underground mine and ramp access, while Hatch and Hazen Research are testing concentrate-processing options and heap-leach restart scenarios.