Risk
If gold is the world’s most universal currency, it’s also one of its most misunderstood.
Australia’s contract mining sector is undergoing a quiet revolution—one that could fundamentally reshape the relationship between contractors and mine owners.
When PLS chief executive Dale Henderson told the WA Mining Club’s November luncheon that it’s “easier to get things done in Brazil than in Western Australia,” the room went quiet for a moment.
A new study has shown that bioleaching can strip more than 90% of sulphur and iron from coal waste, neutralising its acid-generating potential and creating a saleable by-product.
Australia’s mining sector could be overlooking a low-risk, high-reward tailings management method that’s been delivering stability and efficiency in other parts of the world for decades.
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.
Seiche waves might be rare in mining, but new research shows they could pack enough force to overtop in-pit tailings storage facilities with serious consequences for operations, infrastructure, and safety.
There’s a moment in every technological revolution when optimism meets reality - when the glossy promise of transformation hits the grit of practical deployment.
It takes a certain type of confidence to suggest the future of clean energy metals might lie four kilometres below the Pacific Ocean – confidence, and perhaps a streak of stubbornness.
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.
