Global quarrying major Lafarge has awarded Babcock International Group a £100 million, ten year contract to provide a fleet managed service for its Heavy Mobile Equipment (HME) located across its Aggregate and Cement sites in North America. The programme follows a £50m fleet management contract awarded to Babcock in July 2011, which covers Lafarge's Aggregate and Cement sites in the UK.

Metso is to supply another tandem rotary railcar dumper to Hamersley Iron in Australia. The equipment will be delivered to Hamersley Iron's Cape Lambert, Port B iron ore operation in North Western Australia. The order includes spare parts, technical assistance during installation, pre-commissioning, commissioning and performance testing. The design allows for lower maintenance and higher, more efficient material output flow, and ease and safety of maintenance is improved through a reduction of overall components. This is the second equipment of this kind delivered to Hamersley Iron for this project. The previous equipment was delivered in 2011. The design of the equipment was achieved by working closely with Rio Tinto and the engineering team of this project. "One of Metso's commitments moving forward is to work together with our customers in partnership so that we achieve the best outcome, and we look forward to supporting Rio Tinto on this project", said Max Wijasuriya, VP, Capital Equipment for Australia and New Zealand, at Metso. Delivery is scheduled for the second quarter of 2013.

FLSmidth has been awarded a contract worth approximately $82 million from the company Allied Nevada Gold to supply equipment and services for its major Hycroft gold mine expansion.

Gindalbie Metals has announced the award of the magnetite ore mining contract for the Karara iron ore project in Western Australia to Downer EDI Mining. With a total estimated value of approximately A$570 million over a duration of six years, the contract is one of the largest single operational contracts for the Karara project.

Sweden's LKAB has commissioned Beumer to provide a curved pipe conveyor for the transport of olivine in summer and quartzite in winter, each at 800 t/h. This material is used for the production of high-quality iron ore pellets. The system will be installed at the company-owned transshipment port in Narvik, Norway. It will automate the storage of material and the filling of railway wagons, which is currently done manually. These wagons transport the material to the main plants in Kiruna and Malmberget.

A BAEconomics report, commissioned by Rio Tinto to look into the benefits and costs of autonomous technology, has concluded that investment in mining technology and innovation should sustain long-term competitiveness while also providing the broader economic benefits likely to flow from a strong mining industry. The report, titled Autonomous and remote operation technologies in the mining industry: benefits and costs examines the advances in new technology, showing that while the costs and challenges of automation in the mining sector are substantial, they are potentially far outweighed by the benefits they can deliver.

The world's largest contract miner, the Leighton Group, yesterday officially launched its operations in Africa at Mining Indaba 2012 in Cape Town, South Africa. The Leighton Group is a leading international contractor and the world's largest international contract miner. The group, which operates across Australia, the Pacific, Asia, the Middle East and now Africa, has annual revenues of almost $20 billion and work in hand of over $45 billion. Leighton Africa has been established to capitalise on the growing opportunities in the African mining industry.

Gavin Halse, Managing Director of South Africa's ApplyIT says the “medium-term outlook for the world's mining sector remains positive. Global demand for resources driven from the emerging economies has over the past 12 months led to unpreced...

GE Energy has announced the introduction of a new alternating current (AC) excavator solution which consists of drives, controls and motors designed specifically for challenging surface mine applications and environments. GE already has ...

Two large Hitachi excavators are bringing advanced technology to an ancient copper mine in Cyprus. The ZX870LCR-3 and ZX470LCH-3 have been working at the site, which dates back more than 4,000 years, since early 2011. Cyprus was the main source for the...

GE Energy has announced the introduction of a new alternating current (AC) excavator solution which consists of drives, controls and motors designed specifically for challenging surface mine applications and environments. GE already has a long history of designing, installing and maintaining direct current (DC) excavator systems worldwide.

Gavin Halse, Managing Director of South Africa's ApplyIT says the "medium-term outlook for the world's mining sector remains positive. Global demand for resources driven from the emerging economies has over the past 12 months led to unprecedented levels of investment in certain regions, notably in Australia. These new projects are placing a strain on resources as companies compete for scarce skills and expertise in the labour markets.