Procurement Efficiency
When global power plays, policy whiplash and economic shocks collide, opportunity hides in the chaos — and for Australia’s critical minerals sector, survival now depends on strategy as much as supply.
When a Queensland flood swallowed a dragline and left an underground portal 60 metres underwater, Wade Ludlow knew mine levee design had to change.
It’s not every day you hear about two massive shafts being sunk side by side in Australian coal country, each with its own design, equipment, and risks.
Deep underground in the Illawarra, a battery electric transporter called Driftex is rewriting the rules of coal mining by beating diesel on safety, speed and cost.
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.
The future of Australia’s role in critical mineral supply chains may depend less on matching China’s scale and more on proving that secure, trusted supply with ESG credentials is worth paying for.
China quietly built the world’s most powerful critical minerals supply chains while other nations - including Australia - dozed through a geopolitical shift that now threatens economic security, trade independence, and defence readiness.
PLS’ Pilgangoora Operation delivered a standout June quarter, with production volumes up 77 percent and unit operating costs down 10 percent compared to the previous quarter thanks to the integration of the world’s largest lithium ore sorting plant.
Sensor-based sorting is no longer just a niche preconcentration step - it’s fast becoming a critical pillar of intelligent gold processing.
The future of mineral exploration may hinge less on drill rigs and more on the quality of the data flowing from them.
