Category: Issues

EACON hits autonomous haulage milestone in Australia A retrofitted Komatsu HD1500 haul truck has successfully completed its first fully autonomous haulage test cycle at Norton Gold Fields' Mulgarrie mine in WA.The achievement is part of a tri-partite project between EACON Mining Technology, Thiess and Norton Gold Fields, confirming the successful retrofit of autonomy on Komatsu trucks.Prior to the retrofit, the truck had about 20,000 operating hours and was elected as part of the project to broaden asset life.Following a structured series of testing and validation activities, the retrofitted truck, named Jerry, has met the criteria to operate fully autonomously, demonstrating the maturity of EACON's complete autonomous driving system under Australian operating conditions.The first phase of the project demonstrated reliable integration of EACON's independently developed drive-by-wire retrofit kit, consistent vehicle behaviour under autonomous control and effective tuning of control algorithms to match the truck's native operating characteristics.Comprehensive system-level validation was completed across perception, planning, decision-making and vehicle control, confirming the system's readiness for continued on-site testing and subsequent project phases.EACON Mining Australia chief operating officer Elaine Jin says the milestone reflects disciplined execution and close collaboration across all project partners."Achieving this milestone safely and on schedule validates the maturity of our ORCASTRA system, its adaptability to the Australian mining environment and its proven performance on large scale rigid dump trucks,” she said.Thiess assets and autonomy group executive Ryan Kirkwood says the global mining services provider was proud to work in partnership with EACON and Norton Gold Fields to demonstrate how autonomy could be introduced safely across mixed, brownfield fleets."Thiess has implemented, operated and optimised autonomous solutions for haulage fleets, dozer and drill applications globally for close to 15 years,” he said.“We're pleased to bring our experience to this project to support change management and implementation processes, from commissioning through to successful maintenance with our workforce of the future."Supporting fleet expansion and further validation activities, a second Komatsu HD1500 truck, Tom, has also recently completed retrofit works and is making its way to the Mulgarrie site.Norton Gold Fields chief executive Wei Lin says the milestone demonstrates the potential for retrofit autonomous haulage to be safely introduced into active Australian gold mining operations.“The project has progressed in a structured and measured way, with safety and operational readiness at the forefront,” he said.By enabling autonomy across multiple vehicle brands and models, EACON's open, OEM-agnostic autonomy solution provides a practical pathway for upgrading existing mining fleets and facilitates the transition of autonomous haulage from greenfield deployments to scalable brownfield and retrofit operations.

Liebherr-Australia’s fabrication team sets new recordIn December, Liebherr-Australia set a new annual production benchmark when its fabrication team completed its 50th mining excavator bucket for 2025.Completed at the company’s Adelaide, South Australia facility, the achievement marks a 16% increase on the 43 buckets fabricated in 2024.Liebherr-Australia manufactures buckets for its comprehensive range of mining excavators entirely in-house — enabling it to deliver purpose-built attachment solutions engineered specifically for Australian mining conditions, while maintaining full control over quality, safety and delivery timelines.Liebherr-Australia mining fabrication manage Steve Smith says what the Adelaide team’s achievement is outstanding.“As well as setting new manufacturing benchmarks, the team also achieved the highest possible result in our internal global audit for excellence in fabrication and welding, compliance with Liebherr global requirements and rigorous quality standards,” he said.“This outcome reflects the team’s strong governance, technical rigour and commitment to Liebherr’s global quality standards.”Building these 50 buckets involved more than 60 employees across the fabrication team putting in a collective 92,600 productive hours, highlighting both the scale of output required to meet customer demand and the depth of expertise across the workforce.Automated welding technology has been implemented at the Adelaide facility in the form of a collaborative robot, or ‘cobot’, which supports the fabrication team with high precision welding tasks, improving consistency in the welding process while also reducing reliance on manual welding hours.With the introduction of this technology, welding speeds at the Adelaide facility are now six times faster, which saved more than 2000 labour hours in 2025 — the same time it takes to fabricate an entirely new R 9600 bucket.“This investment strengthens Liebherr-Australia’s ability to deliver high-quality attachments at scale, while upholding rigorous quality standards, supporting workforce safety and building long-term fabrication capability,” Mr Smith said.

Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST) reports a record-breaking FY25 marked by high gold prices, steady production and the acquisition of De Grey Mining’s (ASX: DEG) Hemi development project. FY25 has seen several miners report record-breaking years, thanks largely to similarly remarkable gold prices. Gold has surged multiple times throughout the year, thanks in part to global uncertainty around aggressive tariffs driving investment into the industry. Northern Star has reported $6.4b in revenue, up 30% from FY24’s $4.9b, as well as an underlying net profit of over $1.4b after tax, which has more than doubled from last year. The miner has also reported a record group underlying free cash flow of $536m, with shareholders seeing fully franked dividends of 30c/share. Whilst…

Latitude 66 (ASX: LAT) has announced the planned commencement of a drilling program at its Edjudina Project, located in the Laverton region of WA. The planned drilling program will commence in March this year and consists of up to 9,000m of aircore and potentially follow up reverse circulation drilling to test multiple significant gold-in-soil surface anomalies. This follows from previous exploration works completed across the project area, which have shown substantial potential given their scale and proximity to known mineral occurrences and infrastructure. Latitude66 has also signed a drill for equity agreement with Raglan Drilling, allowing the company to complete up to 9,000m of drilling, with 25% of the cost payable through the issue of new shares under its available…

Australian mining’s ultimate all-in-one welding powerhouse Vast distances, harsh environmental conditions, high stakes – these are just some of the challenges faced by Australian mining professionals every day. In remote mining sites, equipment failures demand rapid, reliable solutions – yet with limited access to stable power sources and support facilities, even basic repairs can become complex and costly. This highlights the need for versatile, self-sufficient equipment that can withstand Australia’s rugged terrain and keep mining operations running smoothly. And it’s in response to these requirements that Miller has developed the Big Blue 600X® Duo Air Pak™ 50Hz with ArcReach® Technology, an advanced engine-driven welder engineered to tackle some of the industry’s most challenging requirements. Designed to address critical site needs…