Tonly Heavy Industries has signed a framework agreement to supply 800 autonomous mining trucks to Xinjiang Hanxiang, signalling one of China’s largest single deployments of driverless haulage fleets. Announced at the “Intelligent Driving Mines, Launching a New Green Chapter” seminar in Urumqi on 16 July, the deal targets large open-pit operations in Xinjiang, integrating autonomous haulage with mine dispatch and green “intelligent mine” systems. For geotechnical and mine planners, such a fleet size will materially affect haul road design, traffic management, and pit-to-crusher logistics.

Vale’s 2025 Research, Development & Innovation Report sets out its “mine of the future” roadmap, centred on smarter, lower-impact operations across its iron ore and base metals portfolio. The programme combines autonomous haulage and drilling, advanced ore sorting and digital twins with electrification of mobile fleets and fixed plant to cut diesel use and associated emissions. For geotechnical and operations teams, this signals more sensor-dense pits, tighter integration of real-time stability monitoring with fleet control, and design criteria increasingly driven by decarbonisation and automation requirements.

British Columbia and the Simpcw First Nation have signed a consent-based agreement to govern the environmental assessment of Trekor Metals’ Yellowhead copper project in Simpcwul’ecw Territory, the first time Simpcw has applied its Indigenous-led consent process to a major mine. Trekor has submitted a Detailed Project Description to the BC Environmental Assessment Office after early engagement and additional technical work, alongside an economic impact study for construction and operations. The proposed open pit is scoped as a 90,000 t/d operation over 25 years, targeting 178 million lb/y copper at US$1.90/lb cash costs, rising to 206 million lb/y at US$1.62/lb in the first five years.