Hancock Prospecting has secured a successful bid for five mineral exploration licences in Saudi Arabia, partnering with a local company to enter one of the world’s most active greenfield exploration jurisdictions. The licences give Gina Rinehart’s group a platform to test iron ore and other commodity potential in the Arabian Shield, a Precambrian terrane already hosting major gold and base metal deposits. For geologists and mine planners, the move signals growing Australian involvement in Saudi projects where state-backed infrastructure and permitting can accelerate drilling and resource definition.

Hancock Iron Ore safety advocate Dale Harris argues that “engaging with empathy” is critical to designing effective safety programmes across its Pilbara iron ore operations. Harris links lower incident rates to supervisors spending time in the pit and at fixed plant, listening to operators about specific hazards such as conveyor pinch points and fatigue on 12-hour night shifts. The approach shifts pre-starts and toolbox talks from one-way briefings to two-way discussions, aiming to capture near-miss data and behavioural risks that standard JSAs and procedures often miss.

Rio Tinto is widely expected to table an all‑share bid for Glencore, with RBC’s Ben Davis flagging a likely 27% premium to Glencore’s undisturbed price, valuing it at up to about $87 billion and creating a miner larger than BHP by market capitalisation. The strategic driver is copper: Glencore’s portfolio would lift Rio’s long‑term exposure beyond Oyu Tolgoi and Simandou, anchored by assets such as its 44% stake in Chile’s Collahuasi open pit, amid record copper prices and a thin global project pipeline. RBC’s investor survey sees potential cost synergies of $3.7–$10.4 billion versus roughly $17 billion needed to break even on a 27% premium, with additional execution risk from integrating Glencore’s trading‑led culture and eventually offloading its ring‑fenced Australian coal subsidiary.