Philippi-Hagenbuch Inc reports that its fully custom-engineered off-highway haul truck bodies, water tanks and specialty inserts can be integrated directly with autonomous haul truck platforms from any OEM, maintaining compatibility with existing autonomy kits. The company designs each body to match the truck’s specific chassis geometry, payload target and centre-of-gravity envelope, aiming to preserve sensor fields of view and avoid interference with LiDAR, radar and GPS hardware. For mine operators, this allows payload-optimised bodies and water units without revalidating autonomous haul system performance or rewriting control logic.

PYBAR Mining Services, a Thiess company, has secured the underground exploration decline contract for Southern Cross Gold Consolidated’s Sunday Creek gold–antimony project, located about 60 km north of Melbourne in Victoria. The contract follows Resources Victoria Work Plan approval in November 2025 and public backing from Premier Jacinta Allan, clearing key regulatory and political hurdles. Development of an exploration decline at Sunday Creek will enable deeper drilling, improved structural understanding of the high-grade gold–antimony system, and more accurate resource definition ahead of any future mine design.

Nickel and cobalt developers advanced several projects in the March quarter, with IGO progressing downstream refining options for its Nova and Cosmos assets and BHP continuing ramp-up and debottlenecking at the 100,000tpa Kwinana nickel refinery. Australian laterite projects moved to tighten economics via updated feasibility work, higher-grade ore scheduling and revised capex for HPAL circuits, while multiple juniors signed offtake MOUs with Asian battery manufacturers to secure financing and integrate into precursor cathode active material supply chains.