Mining company Kovdorsky GOK is confidently developing a “super deep” mine plan at its Zhelezny open-pit operation in the Murmansk region of Russia. As a result, the company, owned by fertilizer giant Eurochem, will be able to gain access to an additional 300 to 400 million metric tons of ore and extend its life by a further 30 years to 2049.

Gemcom Software recently announced that Straits Resources has implemented Gemcom’s InSite mine production management solution at its Tritton copper mine. Straits Resources is a mining and exploration company focused on copper and gold in Australia and Asia.

Sandvik Mining and Construction’s Australia Pacific regional group recently secured a contract to supply eight 60-metric-ton-capacity TH660 underground haul trucks and an LH621 LHD to Redpath Australia for its Mt. Lyell copper mine on the west coast of Tasmania. Mt. Lyell is owned by Vedanta Resources, one of India’s largest mining companies, and is operated by its Australian subsidiary Copper Mines of Tasmania.

Wear-coating specialist NanoSteel, headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, USA, recently reported that results from an overlay wear-plate application on an underground mine haul truck body show its product increased service life by a factor greater than four and yielded significant operating cost savings and increased revenue for a mining customer.

In June, Caterpillar formally introduced the latest version of its MineStar system technology suite to the mining press, along with MineStar’s first ‘capability set’—a sub-suite of products and functionalities that can operate in stand-alone applications or can be combined with other capability sets to expand the scope of equipment-management tools up the full range available in the complete MineStar suite, including autonomous operations (see sidebar).