Master Drilling has secured its first Portuguese contract from copper-zinc producer Boliden Somincor to construct two raisebored shafts, each 630 m deep and 4.5 m in diameter. The twin vertical excavations will be critical for long-term hoisting, ventilation or service access, demanding precise control of deviation over the full 630 m and careful management of rock stability around the 4.5 m diameter openings. For geotechnical and mine planning teams, the project signals growing availability of large-diameter raiseboring capacity in European base metal operations.

Innovative Wireless Technologies (IWT) has been selected for negotiation of a US Department of Energy award to lead the Mine of the Future: Proving Ground Initiative, a national programme to accelerate advanced mining technologies. The initiative will focus on development, testing and deployment of new systems in operating US mines, creating dedicated proving-ground sites rather than relying on ad hoc pilots. For geotechnical and operations teams, this signals forthcoming funded trials of next-generation communications, sensing and automation platforms under real production conditions.

MLG Oz has secured a three-year extension to its haulage and site services contract at Ora Banda Mining’s Davyhurst gold project in Western Australia, expected to generate about A$16 million per year in revenue. The scope covers continuous 24/7 operations, including ore and waste haulage, likely involving high-capacity road trains on regional haul roads and intensive load–haul cycles between pit, ROM pad and processing plant. For mine planners and contractors, the deal signals stable medium-term demand for bulk logistics capacity and sustained production scheduling at Davyhurst.