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Exploration activity across Australia is being driven by Amara Minerals’ rebrand from Adelong Gold as it advances the Adelong Gold Project in New South Wales alongside copper–gold targets in Queensland. Stelar Metals is progressing drilling on its South Australian critical minerals portfolio, including sediment-hosted copper and REE prospects near Broken Hill. Rincon Resources is simultaneously stepping up work on its West Arunta and Paterson Province tenements in Western Australia, focusing on IOCG-style and intrusion-related gold–copper systems.

Master Drilling has commissioned its first remote drilling system in Canada at Agnico Eagle’s Odyssey Mine in Quebec, starting with reaming a 220-m hole using a 5.5-m diameter reamer. The RD7 raiseboring machine is operated remotely, removing personnel from the immediate drilling area while maintaining tight control of alignment and breakthrough. For geotechnical and mine planning teams, the successful large-diameter, long-hole trial signals growing viability of remote raiseboring for ventilation shafts and service raises in deep Canadian operations.

BME’s General Manager for Operational Excellence & SHERQ, Dr Ramesh Dhoorgapersadh, told the SAFEX International Congress XXI in Portugal that sustainable mine safety demands a “critical evolution” towards integrating health, wellness and broader human factors into risk management. His research links operational safety performance not only to traditional controls around blasting, explosives handling and SHERQ systems, but also to workers’ physical and mental health status. For mine operators, this points to embedding wellness metrics and human-factor diagnostics alongside conventional lagging and leading safety indicators.

Elemental Royalty is acquiring Vizsla Royalties in a $239 million (C$327 million) deal, offering a 31% premium and securing a 2%–3.5% uncapped NSR royalty over Vizsla Silver’s Panuco silver-gold project in Jalisco, including 3.5% on the Silverstone and 2% on the Rio Panuco concessions. Panuco’s 2025 feasibility study outlines 17.4 million oz silver-equivalent per year over 9.4 years, with Vizsla Royalties estimating about 7,500 oz gold-equivalent annually to Elemental once in production. The transaction, backed by holders of 23% of Vizsla Royalties’ shares, is expected to close in Q3 2026.

Appian Capital Advisory is buying Omico Copper to take a 95% stake in Namibia’s Omitiomire project and plans to invest over $400 million to build a 30,000 t/y copper mine with a 15-year life and first production in about three years, 140 km northeast of Windhoek. The deal follows Appian’s 2023 purchase of the Rosh Pinah zinc mine and sits within a $1 billion partnership with the IFC targeting African and Latin American assets, including Santa Rita nickel in Brazil and Asante Gold’s Ghana operations. With copper trading near $14,000/t and S&P Global projecting demand to exceed 42 Mt by 2040, the move signals continued capital flow into technically advanced, near-development copper projects.

Gold held near record levels on Thursday, with spot bullion at about $4,693 an ounce after a 0.6% drop, as US wholesale inflation in April rose at the fastest pace since 2022 and 10-year Treasury yields approached their highest since July. Kevin Warsh’s narrow confirmation as Federal Reserve chair has revived concerns over Fed independence, echoing the January spike when such fears helped push gold to fresh highs. Silver has surged 18% so far in May to around $87 an ounce, driven by speculative trading in thin liquidity and momentum across silver, zinc and copper.

Volta Metals’ Springer rare earths project, 70 km east of Sudbury with road access and grid power on site, now hosts 56.6 million indicated tonnes at 0.7% TREO plus 119.5 million inferred tonnes at 0.58% TREO, including a near-surface high-grade core of 11.5 million tonnes at 1.1% TREO. A 1,638-metre drill campaign delivered an 11-fold resource increase over the historical estimate, with more than 5,000 metres planned to support a preliminary economic assessment by end-2026. Fall drilling also intersected 131.9 metres at 81.2 g/t Ga2O3 and 1.4% TREO from 59.6 metres, positioning Springer as a potential primary gallium resource pending recovery testwork.

Hemlo Mining has reported a standout intercept of 16.1 g/t gold over 8.1 m from 99 m depth in South‑Rim hole 7652606 at its Ontario mine, including a 2 m interval at 59.7 g/t, as part of a 130,000 m 2026 drilling campaign. South‑Rim sits 50–150 m from the producing C‑Zone and is interpreted as part of a plunge‑controlled structure extending >1.5 km vertically within a 300 m‑wide east‑west corridor, with five underground and one surface rig currently active. All seven completed South‑Rim holes hit mineralisation, which remains open along strike and down plunge, while step‑out work is shifting east towards the largely untested B‑Zone.

Larvotto Resources’ initial flotation testwork on tailings storage facility 1 at the Hillgrove antimony-gold project in New South Wales reports 80–95% antimony and 40–75% gold recoveries from about 1.4 million tonnes of legacy tailings. The material, deposited over ~20 years from an antimony-focused plant, also carries significant gold and tungsten, with earlier work showing 90% tungsten recovery and a 16-fold grade upgrade into a saleable concentrate. Larvotto plans to run the same conventional flotation circuit in its upgraded plant from August 2026, coupling metal recovery with rehabilitation of a facility beside a 500-metre gorge.

Sandvik’s Digital Mining Technologies division, created in 2021 to drive underground electrification, automation, digitalisation and end-to-end optimisation, is now deploying interoperable systems across planning, execution and processing. The business integrates Deswik mine planning, Newtrax IoT and OptiMine/Fleet management with AutoMine automation to link real-time telemetry from loaders, trucks and drills to short-interval control and production scheduling. For engineers, the key shift is from siloed fleet and planning tools to a single data environment that can support dynamic haulage routing, energy use tracking and condition-based maintenance.

Core Lithium has awarded a $274 million underground mining contract at the Finniss lithium project near Darwin to Dev Mining Services, a subsidiary of Development Global, as part of its restart strategy after open-pit operations were suspended in 2024. The deal covers underground development and production at the BP33 deposit, targeting spodumene ore beneath the existing pit using decline access rather than further cutbacks. For geotechnical and mine planners, the shift to underground at BP33 signals a focus on higher-grade zones and tighter control of strip ratios and operating costs in a volatile lithium price environment.

High-grade gold intercepts at Pantoro Gold’s Racetrack target are extending the Norseman project’s growth pipeline in Western Australia, with multiple lodes now defined over several hundred metres of strike and remaining open at depth. Recent drilling has returned narrow but very high-grade zones, including visible gold in quartz veining adjacent to existing infrastructure at the Scotia Mining Centre. The results support near-mine resource growth and potential low-capex mill feed, with Pantoro planning further step-out and infill drilling to refine underground mine designs.

BHP president Americas Brandon Craig describes a “massive opportunity” to lift copper output from Tier‑1 assets such as the Escondida open pit in Chile and the Olympic Dam underground operation in South Australia. He points to latent capacity in existing concentrators, debottlenecking of haulage and crushing circuits, and incremental leaching projects as lower‑risk growth options compared with greenfield builds. For geotechnical and mining teams, the focus is on optimising pit slopes, underground ground support and tailings storage to sustain higher throughput without major new footprints.

Rapid expansion across Papua New Guinea’s resources sector is driving the PNG Expo in Port Moresby as a key forum for miners, contractors and OEMs to negotiate new projects and supply contracts face to face. Delegates are targeting upcoming large-scale copper–gold and LNG developments, with particular interest in local haul road construction, modular camp infrastructure and power solutions for remote high-rainfall sites. For geotechnical and civil teams, the event signals growing demand for slope stability design, tailings storage planning and logistics corridors across highly weathered tropical terrain.

Fortescue has joined the CoRE Learning Foundation as a garnet-level sponsor, backing its national STEM education program aimed at building a future workforce for mining, resources and renewable energy projects. The partnership supports CoRE’s project-based learning model, which links school curricula to real-world mine planning, orebody modelling and decarbonisation challenges faced by operators such as Fortescue. For geotechnical and mining engineers, this signals stronger pipelines of graduates familiar with digital geology tools, pit design concepts and energy-transition technologies before entering tertiary study or apprenticeships.

First Quantum Minerals has filed an NI 43-101 Technical Report with an updated copper Mineral Resource estimate for the La Granja project in northern Peru, where it holds 55% alongside Rio Tinto’s 45% stake. The development concept leaves corridor and power design flexibility for future trolley-assist haulage, signalling potential partial electrification of the truck fleet on the steep pit ramps. For mine planners and geotechnical teams, early allowance for trolley lines, substations and ramp geometry could materially influence slope design, haul profiles and overall pit layout.

Sandvik Ground Support has agreed a US joint venture with Alpha Metallurgical Resources to establish local manufacturing for rock reinforcement products, with Sandvik holding 51% and Alpha 49%. The structure includes a long-term exclusive supply arrangement, giving Sandvik secured offtake into Alpha’s underground coal operations while anchoring domestic production capacity for bolts, mesh and other ground support consumables. For US mines, the move signals shorter supply chains, reduced import exposure and potentially tighter technical integration between support design and production.

Four mining technologies from the ARC Training Centre for Integrated Operations for Complex Resources are now ready for field trials, including a digital twin platform for complex orebodies, real-time sensor fusion for ore characterisation, and AI-based decision support for integrated mine-to-mill control. The suite targets data-driven optimisation of drilling, blasting, and processing, with pilots seeking partners across hard-rock operations and brownfield plants. For engineers, the work signals near-term opportunities to plug advanced analytics and automation into existing fleets and control rooms without full greenfield redesigns.

Motion is deploying in-situ machining services to Australian mine sites, bringing line-boring, flange facing and journal repair directly to assets such as car dumpers, draglines and large gearboxes that are too large or time-critical to dismantle. Using portable CNC and orbital machining rigs, technicians can restore bearing seats, slew rings and mill trunnions to tolerance without removing them from foundations or structural frames. The approach reduces crane lifts and transport of multi-tonne components, cutting outage durations and geotechnical or structural risk associated with repeated disassembly.

Australian Power Equipment is reframing mine-site optimisation around transformer reliability, availability and lifecycle performance rather than lowest upfront cost, supplying B&D transformers filled with FR3 natural ester fluid instead of mineral oil or diesel-based coolants. The FR3 ester offers higher fire point and biodegradability, enabling compact substation layouts closer to plant and reduced bunding requirements, which can simplify brownfield expansions. For engineers, the shift pushes whole-of-life asset modelling, factoring in longer insulation life, fewer unplanned outages and reduced supply chain risk for critical electrical equipment.

Equinox Gold’s US$18.5 billion acquisition of Orla Mining will create a North America-focused gold producer targeting 1.1 Moz/year initially, with a development pipeline that could lift output about 70% to 1.9 Moz/year. The combined portfolio will span operating and growth assets in Canada, the US, Mexico and Nicaragua, including the Greenstone and Valentine projects plus Orla’s Musselwhite mine, with Equinox CEO Darren Hall staying as chief executive and Orla’s Jason Simpson becoming president. The new entity will also assume Orla’s roughly US$400 million arbitration claim over the stalled Cerro Quema project in Panama.

US President Donald Trump and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva are using rare earths to recalibrate ties, centring talks on USA Rare Earth’s proposed $2.8 billion acquisition of Serra Verde, Brazil’s only commercial-scale rare earths operation in Goiás. Brazil, which holds about 21 million tonnes of rare-earth reserves (second only to China), is advancing legislation for a $2 billion guarantee fund and $5 billion in tax credits to anchor domestic processing and technology transfer. For miners and investors, multi‑year licensing delays, post‑Brumadinho environmental scrutiny and sovereignty debates over “preferential access” remain the key schedule and permitting risks.

Copper futures on Comex jumped 2.4% to a record $6.69/lb, widening the premium over LME contracts, which rose 1.6% to nearly $14,200/t, as traders priced in possible new US tariffs on refined copper imports. Supply risk is intensifying, with Gulf disruptions choking sulphur flows, threatening sulphuric acid availability for roughly one-fifth of global mined copper and potentially curbing up to 4.8 Mt of production if the Strait of Hormuz closes. Refined output is already reacting, with China’s April production down 3% and further declines expected, even as copper prices are up more than 10% year-to-date.

China’s April 2025 rare earth export controls remain in force despite Trump–Xi talks, with customs data showing exports of heavy rare earths yttrium, dysprosium and terbium still about 50% below pre-control levels. Prices outside China have surged, with dysprosium and terbium up four- to five-fold and yttrium reportedly about 140 times higher, while Japan has received only 4% of its former dysprosium volumes and Germany none. US aerospace manufacturers have already paused production due to yttrium shortages, and magnet buyers are paying 1.5–3 times more, signalling prolonged cost and supply risk for EV, wind and defence supply chains.