mining productivity
There’s a moment in every technological revolution when optimism meets reality - when the glossy promise of transformation hits the grit of practical deployment.
Mining loves a neat correlation – tonnes per shift, dollars per ounce, emissions per unit, but as Peter Burton pointed out at AusIMM’s Critical Minerals 2025 in Perth, one thing that refuses to fit a tidy graph is safety performance.
The future of mining is already here - and it’s being shaped by AI systems that can think, act and integrate seamlessly with the tools you already use.
AI and automation might reshape the future of mining safety, but Cam Stevens argues the real risk is leaving safety professionals out of the conversation.
When Whitehaven Coal acquired BMA’s Daunia and Blackwater mines in Queensland’s Bowen Basin, it wasn’t just the company’s biggest purchase to date.
As mining companies increasingly operate from hundreds, sometimes thousands, of kilometres away from the pit or plant, one challenge has remained constant – how to give remote teams the same operational context, detail, and situational awareness they’d have if they were standing on site.
Every hour of downtime costs a mine tens of thousands of dollars, and Professor Amir Gandomi told the NSW Resources Regulator’s Mechanical Engineering Safety Seminar how artificial intelligence is now cutting those losses by predicting failures and optimising operations in seconds.
In a sector where “take-or-pay” contracts have long dictated how miners move their commodities, one new entrant is promising a more flexible model that puts the needs of producers first.
In an industry where safety is non-negotiable and downtime is costly, one Western Australian firm is taking a precision approach to mine maintenance.
In the drive to improve energy efficiency, recovery, and metallurgical precision, a global engineering company has released a quiet disruptor: a machine-learning-enabled sensor that’s helping mining operations monitor and optimise grind size with new levels of accuracy.
