Freeport has submitted an Environmental Impact Assessment to Chile’s SEIA for a US$7.5 billion project to extend Minera El Abra’s Sulfolix sulphide heap leach operations and build a new concentrator plant. The plan includes a full transition from current water sources to desalinated seawater, requiring major new desalination and water conveyance infrastructure on site. For mine planners and process engineers, the shift implies re-optimisation of leach–concentrator integration, water balance, and permitting timelines for long‑term copper production in northern Chile.

Boss Energy has increased uranium mineral resources at its South Australian Honeymoon project, updating estimates for the Gould’s Dam and Jason’s deposits after recent drilling and reinterpretation of historical data. The company is advancing in-situ recovery (ISR) development at Honeymoon, where existing processing infrastructure and permitted capacity provide a faster restart pathway than a greenfield build. For geotechnical and hydrogeological teams, the enlarged ISR resource base sharpens the focus on permeability, leachate flow paths and groundwater management in the Yarramba palaeochannel system.

Southern Cross Gold has reported its highest-grade shallow gold intersection to date at the Apollo prospect, part of its Sunday Creek project in Victoria, signalling further upside in near-surface mineralisation. The result comes from ongoing diamond drilling targeting epizonal gold–antimony veins, with Apollo sitting along strike from the Rising Sun and Christina prospects within the same structural corridor. For mine planners and geotechs, the shallow, high-grade nature of the intercept strengthens the case for potential open-pit starter scenarios and tighter geotechnical characterisation of vein-hosted ground conditions.