Resolution Copper has let about $110 million in contracts to Major Drilling America and Redpath USA to accelerate exploration drilling and underground development at its proposed deep copper mine in Arizona. The work forms a major early tranche of an approximately $500 million post-FEIS investment programme, signalling a shift from study to execution-phase activities. For geotechnical and mining teams, this points to imminent ramp-up in underground access, drilling density, and ground characterisation data ahead of any full-scale shaft sinking or block-cave development decisions.

Normet has launched the HX-Bolt hybrid rock reinforcement system for underground mines, combining mechanical, frictional and bonded anchorage in a single bolt to handle variable and evolving ground conditions. The design targets rapid dynamic support immediately after installation while also providing long-term load capacity, aiming to bridge the gap between traditional mechanical anchors and fully grouted bolts in seismically active headings and development drives. For geotechnical engineers, the key change is a single bolt type that can be tuned to different ground behaviours without wholesale redesign of support patterns.

Alice Queen has remobilised a diamond drill rig to the Horn Island gold project in the Torres Strait, its first drilling there in several years, to test a recently defined exploration target. The rig will support a multi‑phase programme aimed at expanding known mineralisation around existing Horn Island pit shells and conceptual targets, rather than greenfield step‑outs. For geotechs and mine planners, new core data from this historically under‑drilled island deposit will refine structural models, grade continuity assumptions and potential open‑pit or underground design envelopes.