Volvo Group is creating a dedicated Volvo Mining business to consolidate sales of Volvo-branded haul trucks, construction equipment and autonomous solutions into a single global mining-focused structure. The entity will integrate on-road and off-road fleets with autonomy platforms across load–haul, pit and haul road applications, targeting large open-pit operations as well as smaller contract miners. For mine planners and fleet engineers, this signals tighter OEM integration between conventional diesel fleets and emerging autonomous haulage and support equipment within one commercial and support framework.

Booyco Electronics has launched its Missing Person Locator (MPL), an underground personnel tracking system designed to locate workers rapidly during emergencies and meet tighter South African mine safety legislation. The MPL integrates with existing Booyco collision avoidance and cap-lamp tags to provide real-time positional data in complex tunnel networks, addressing delays and blind spots in conventional tag board and muster-based procedures. Faster localisation in the “golden hour” after an incident allows more targeted rescue deployment and supports formalised search-and-rescue protocols in deep, extensive workings.

Overland conveyors are returning to mine planning as ABB Process Industries President Joachim Braun links them to energy resilience, higher productivity and efficiency at large, power-intensive sites. Speaking at the FT Metals and Mining Summit in London, Braun pointed to long-distance conveying as a way to stabilise electrical load profiles compared with diesel truck fleets and to integrate more on-site renewables. For geotechnical and civil teams, this signals renewed demand for multi‑kilometre conveyor corridors, elevated structures and substations designed around high-capacity, continuously loaded belts.