mining innovation
What if the smartest way to power your remote mine site was silent, clean, low-maintenance - and already outsmarting diesel and solar in the field? For Chelsea Kovacs, business development manager at SFC Energy Canada, the answer lies in compact, intelligent fuel cell technology - specifically, direct methanol fuel cells that operate quietly, efficiently, and with minimal emissions.
For Superintendent of Mine Planning Anne-Marie Ebbels, the expansion of BHP’s Prominent Hill operation isn’t just a technical upgrade—it’s a strategic shift in how the mine approaches longevity, productivity and sustainability.
At the 2025 AusIMM Underground Operators Conference in Adelaide, Dyno Nobel Senior Technical Consultant Ed Wargem delivered a message that cut through the noise of technical jargon and digital disruption: sometimes, the biggest improvements in underground development blasting come not from cutting-edge technology, but from going back to basics.
In a bold shift from business-as-usual block modelling, a team of geologists has turned their attention to the part of the orebody most often ignored — waste — and what they’ve uncovered could reshape how mining operations plan for ESG risk.
In an industry where incremental improvements are the norm, a new variable-energy blasting system is delivering a true step change in underground blasting.
Underground haulage is often regarded as a necessary bottleneck—an unavoidable compromise between ore delivery and operational congestion.
It’s not often that a guidance document—rather than an actual regulation—sends shockwaves through the mining sector.
When a major weather event halted production at Evolution Mining’s Ernest Henry Operations (EHO) in March 2023, it set the stage for a remarkable operational comeback that would go on to earn Matt Bouwmeester the Best Paper of the Conference award at the 2025 AusIMM Underground Operators Conference in Adelaide.
At a time when the mining industry is grappling with increasingly complex ore bodies, evolving digital toolsets, and growing demand for speed and precision, one standout case study is helping reshape how we think about resource modelling.
When Sweden-based miner Boliden set out to futureproof its Renström underground operations for autonomous mining, it quickly ran into a persistent problem: water.
