Evolution Mining has approved a coarse particle flotation (CPF) project at the Northparkes copper-gold mine in New South Wales, targeting higher copper recoveries by floating significantly coarser grind sizes than the existing circuit. The CPF installation will sit alongside the current concentrator, aiming to reduce overgrinding energy while capturing value from coarse sulphide particles that currently report to tailings. Board signoff of this and other portfolio projects signals continued capital allocation to brownfield process upgrades rather than major greenfield expansion.

BHP’s Western Australian Iron Ore (WAIO) haul truck fleet is delivering about 127,000 t/month (1.52 Mt/y) of additional iron ore after an engineering upgrade developed with JC Hydraulic. The solution centres on modified hydraulic tipping systems on ultra-class haul trucks, enabling faster, more reliable dump cycles and reducing truck idle time at crushers and stockpiles. For mine planners and maintenance teams, the change effectively adds high-availability truck capacity without expanding fleet size, with revenue uplift estimated in the tens of millions of dollars per year.

Lundin Mining’s 70%-owned Caserones copper mine in Chile has become the first active operation to run an ultra-class haul truck with a hybrid-electric system, retrofitting Komatsu 930E truck #330 with a Cummins First Mode kit. The retrofit converts the diesel-electric truck to a hybrid configuration using an onboard energy storage system to capture and reuse braking energy on haul cycles. For mine planners and maintenance teams, the project provides an in-field reference for fuel burn reduction, potential payload-neutral decarbonisation, and integration of hybrid powertrains into existing 930E fleets.