Sunward is reporting strong growth for its top hammer rock drilling rigs in South Africa, driven by customised R&D for local mining conditions and part of a wider push into Africa and the Americas from its Changsha base. The company is tailoring rig configurations, drilling parameters and component selection to specific orebody, bench and fragmentation requirements rather than exporting standard Chinese domestic models. For mine operators, this signals more competition in the mid-range top hammer segment and potentially lower lifecycle costs for hard rock production drilling fleets.

SiTration and BHP have launched two pilot deployments at the historic Copper Cities site in Arizona’s Globe-Miami district to trial SiTration’s copper valorisation technology on legacy material. The programme starts this month with a small-scale pilot focused on validating continuous, autonomous copper production, targeting low-grade or previously uneconomic resources. If successful, the approach could offer a route to recover additional copper from historic waste streams at similar brownfield sites without major new excavation.

Metso has secured orders from GR Engineering Services to supply key minerals processing technology for Develop Global’s Yitirrti copper-zinc-silver project in the Pilbara, Western Australia. The package includes crushing and grinding equipment and downstream process units for a new concentrator designed for moderate-scale copper-zinc-silver throughput, with flowsheet engineering led by GRES. For engineers, the deal signals continued preference for Metso’s integrated comminution and separation solutions on greenfield base metals plants in Western Australia’s hard-rock conditions.