Ivanhoe Mines’ Platreef project in Limpopo has completed construction of the 4‑Mtpa Shaft #3, broken ground on a 3.3‑Mtpa Phase 2 concentrator and started widening Shaft #2, keeping its Phase 2 expansion on schedule for end‑2027. Hoisting capacity is set to rise five‑fold to about 5 Mtpa, lifting output from roughly 100,000 oz to over 450,000 oz of PGMs plus gold, with a projected Phase 2 life‑of‑mine cash cost of $599/oz net of byproduct credits. A future Phase 3 could take throughput to 10.7 Mtpa and extend mine life by 29 years.

Myriad Uranium’s planned all-share merger with Rush Rare Metals will consolidate control of Wyoming’s Copper Mountain district for the first time since Union Pacific’s 1970s exploration campaign, which totalled the equivalent of C$117 million in today’s dollars. A new technical report compiles historical drilling indicating 16.5–26.7 million lb. U₃O₈ across seven deposits plus Department of Energy/Bendix estimates of 245–655 million lb. in broader “control and assessment” areas, of which Myriad holds 80% and 62% respectively. A 4,500-metre stage-two drill programme in 2024–2025 aims to validate these non-compliant resources and test indications that historical grades were understated.

Sandvik Mining has delivered a DR410i rotary drill rig, factory-equipped for autonomous operation with AutoMine Surface Drilling, to Mariana Minerals’ Copper One open-pit copper mine in Utah. Commissioning of the AutoMine system is under way, setting up an autonomy-first drilling operation rather than retrofitting automation onto an existing manual fleet. The deployment will test fully automated rotary drilling in a greenfield context, with implications for blast-hole quality control, shift utilisation and remote operation in similar large-scale copper projects.