Brent crude jumping from $92 to over $113 per barrel in a single week is used by Edith Kikonyogo, Managing Director of Aggreko Africa, to argue that African mines should cut exposure to fuel price volatility by shifting from pure thermal generation to hybrid power. She points to integrating diesel or HFO with solar PV, battery energy storage systems and, where available, grid connections to stabilise costs and improve supply resilience. For mine planners and power engineers, the message is to design modular, multi-source plants rather than locking into single-fuel genset fleets.

ABB has integrated its ABB Ability Industrial Knowledge Vault generative AI with the ABB Ability Energy Management System, allowing plant teams in sectors including mining to query energy and sustainability data via natural language rather than fixed dashboards. The system sits on top of existing EMS analytics and reporting, pulling from historical and real-time data to generate on-demand insights, summaries and explanations. For mines running complex power mixes and demand-response contracts, this could shorten decision cycles for load shifting, peak shaving and emissions reporting without reconfiguring SCADA or historian setups.

Liebherr’s new 100 t R 9100 G8 mining excavator is moving into series production after pre‑series field validation and will replace the previous R 9100 G6 in the company’s 100 t class. The OEM is targeting the same deployment envelope as the G6 fleet while offering an updated eighth‑generation (G8) platform that standardises components with larger Liebherr mining excavators. For mine planners and maintenance teams, the key implication is a drop‑in successor for existing 100 t fleets with improved parts commonality and lifecycle support.