Volvo Autonomous Solutions and Boliden have completed an autonomous haulage project for tailings dam construction at the Garpenberg zinc mine in Sweden, the first deliverable under their 2023 memorandum of understanding. Volvo’s autonomous haul trucks operated on a defined haul road between the open pit and the tailings facility, integrating with existing conventional fleets and site traffic management. The trial provides data on cycle times, berm and ramp design, and interaction rules needed to scale autonomous haulage for future dam lifts and other overburden movements on Boliden sites.

Epiroc has secured an order from Heidelberg Materials to deploy its LinkOA autonomous haulage system on driverless haul trucks at an Australian quarry, extending the platform from large open-pit mines into the quarrying and aggregates sector. The project will adapt LinkOA’s mine-proven fleet management, collision avoidance and traffic control capabilities to shorter haul cycles, tighter geometries and mixed-traffic quarry conditions. For quarry operators, this signals accelerating interest in OEM-agnostic autonomy retrofits on existing haul fleets to cut operating costs and manage labour constraints.

Weir has relocated its Perth Minerals Division operations to a new 14,500 sq.m purpose-built facility in Hazelmere, marking a major expansion of its Western Australia footprint. The larger site increases capacity to service and rebuild critical mining equipment such as pumps, crushers and slurry handling systems, enabling shorter overhaul and refurbishment cycles for iron ore and gold operations. Faster turnaround on heavy equipment maintenance is likely to reduce downtime risk for remote WA mines that rely on tight shutdown windows and high utilisation rates.