Ivanhoe Mines’ Platreef project in Limpopo has completed construction of the 4‑Mtpa Shaft #3, broken ground on a 3.3‑Mtpa Phase 2 concentrator and started widening Shaft #2, keeping its Phase 2 expansion on schedule for end‑2027. Hoisting capacity is set to rise five‑fold to about 5 Mtpa, lifting output from roughly 100,000 oz to over 450,000 oz of PGMs plus gold, with a projected Phase 2 life‑of‑mine cash cost of $599/oz net of byproduct credits. A future Phase 3 could take throughput to 10.7 Mtpa and extend mine life by 29 years.

Gold equities remain priced near a 9.6x next‑12‑month cash flow multiple, only modestly above the five‑year 8.35x average, even as Haywood and BMO call a “structural bull market” with gold up 7.8% year‑to‑date and forecast around US$4,900–5,000/oz through 2027. Haywood flags Equinox Gold’s Valentine and Greenstone projects targeting >500,000 oz/y in Canada, Artemis Gold’s Blackwater expansion, and restart plays such as 1911 Gold’s True North and First Mining’s Springpole pending its environmental assessment. Troilus Mining’s namesake project is modelled at US$7.3 billion NPV and 47% IRR at US$5,000/oz, with a construction decision due by year‑end.

Sandvik Mining has delivered a DR410i rotary drill rig, factory-equipped for autonomous operation with AutoMine Surface Drilling, to Mariana Minerals’ Copper One open-pit copper mine in Utah. Commissioning of the AutoMine system is under way, setting up an autonomy-first drilling operation rather than retrofitting automation onto an existing manual fleet. The deployment will test fully automated rotary drilling in a greenfield context, with implications for blast-hole quality control, shift utilisation and remote operation in similar large-scale copper projects.