Tonly Heavy Industries has signed a framework agreement to supply 800 autonomous mining trucks to Xinjiang Hanxiang, signalling one of China’s largest single deployments of driverless haulage fleets. Announced at the “Intelligent Driving Mines, Launching a New Green Chapter” seminar in Urumqi on 16 July, the deal targets large open-pit operations in Xinjiang, integrating autonomous haulage with mine dispatch and green “intelligent mine” systems. For geotechnical and mine planners, such a fleet size will materially affect haul road design, traffic management, and pit-to-crusher logistics.

Chinese mining truck OEMs are beginning to introduce structured, multi-life rebuild programmes similar to Australian practice, where four to five full truck rebuilds per chassis are now common. The shift aims to extend the service life of large haul trucks well beyond the initial 40,000–60,000 operating hours typically seen in China, moving towards life-of-mine asset strategies. For mine planners and maintenance engineers, this signals growing support for component-level life tracking, planned frame overhauls and higher-availability fleets from Chinese-supplied ultra-class trucks.

British Columbia and the Simpcw First Nation have signed a consent-based agreement to govern the environmental assessment of Trekor Metals’ Yellowhead copper project in Simpcwul’ecw Territory, the first time Simpcw has applied its Indigenous-led consent process to a major mine. Trekor has submitted a Detailed Project Description to the BC Environmental Assessment Office after early engagement and additional technical work, alongside an economic impact study for construction and operations. The proposed open pit is scoped as a 90,000 t/d operation over 25 years, targeting 178 million lb/y copper at US$1.90/lb cash costs, rising to 206 million lb/y at US$1.62/lb in the first five years.