Anglo American has started supplying desalinated water to its Los Bronces copper mine in Chile via the newly commissioned Quilapilún Station in Colina, where collection pools feed a dedicated pipeline into the operation. Chile’s Joint Minister of Economy, Development and Tourism, and Mining, Daniel Mas, formally opened the valve on 28 September, signalling a shift away from direct freshwater abstraction in a highly water-stressed region. For mine planners and process engineers, the move implies tighter integration of desalinated supply into plant water balances, pumping energy demand, and long-term permitting strategies.

Caterpillar is extending its Command for hauling autonomous haulage system into quarry-scale operations with a new deployment at Dolese Bros’ Richards Spur quarry in Oklahoma, following its earlier rollout on Cat 777 trucks at Carmeuse’s Drummond Island quarry in Michigan supported by Fabick Cat. The Richards Spur project applies AHS to a high-production limestone operation using rigid-frame haul trucks on short, repetitive quarry cycles rather than traditional large open-pit layouts. For geotechnical and quarry planners, this signals OEM confidence that AHS can handle tighter haul roads, variable bench conditions and more constrained traffic patterns typical of aggregates sites.

Above-ground risks have imposed or frozen more than $54 billion in Latin American mining since 2018, including a $31.7‑billion settlement for the 2015 Mariana tailings dam failure in Brazil and roughly $7 billion in stalled Peruvian copper projects plus $4 billion tied up in Mexico’s El Arco, San Nicolás and Cordero developments. AMI also cites Panama’s $6.8‑billion Cobre Panamá copper mine closure and over 700 days of transport-corridor blockades at Peru’s Las Bambas as emblematic of execution and social risk. Consultants report investors now heavily discount projects with uncertain permitting timelines, weak institutional legitimacy or high exposure to illegal mining.