Ark Mines has secured a Queensland mining lease for its Sandy Mitchell rare earths project, marking a key move from exploration to planned production. The licence positions the company to advance mine planning and approvals for heavy and light rare earth extraction in northern Queensland, a region already targeted for critical minerals development. Geotechnical and mine design teams can now progress detailed pit designs, waste storage layouts and haul road alignments under a defined tenure framework.

Fuel supply constraints are increasingly disrupting Australia’s mining and exploration sector, with the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC) warning that junior miners in remote regions face diesel shortages and volatile pricing at outback depots. AMEC reports that smaller operators, often running single-rig exploration programmes and contract haulage fleets, have limited storage capacity and weaker bargaining power with bulk fuel suppliers. The situation is forcing schedule changes, higher operating costs per drilled metre or tonne moved, and greater logistics risk for greenfields projects far from pipeline or rail infrastructure.

Liebherr’s LiReCon (Liebherr Remote Control) system has been deployed on 70‑tonne PR 776 mining dozers for SQM at the Nueva Victoria iodine operation in Chile’s Atacama Desert, marking the first customer delivery of the flagship dozer with factory‑fitted remote capability. The LiReCon package uses an ergonomically designed remote operating station with full‑HD cameras and real‑time machine data to control the dozer from a safe location away from high‑risk ripping and stockpile areas. For mine planners and maintenance teams, this enables deployment of heavy dozers in geotechnically marginal zones while reducing operator exposure and potential downtime from slope failures.