All articles by Heidi Vella

Tailings potential: recovering metals from mine waste streams

In the Peruvian Amazon region of Madre de Dios, the beauty of the dense green rainforest is juxtaposed against a…
Untapped mineral riches: Angola looks beyond diamond mining

Angola, the seventh-largest country in Africa, is most well-known for being one of the region’s biggest oil exporters. The commodity…
What’s new in automated drilling and blasting?

Automation in the mining industry has been burgeoning since the noughties, after the first successful commercial deployment of automated technology…
Going off-grid: the state of on-site power at Australian mines

In the rugged expanse of Australia's mining territories, operators are pivoting towards energy self-sufficiency. According to industry insiders, although on-site…
Inside a new toolkit for finding copper

Copper is one of the most versatile and exploited metals in the world, thanks to its electrical and thermal conduction…

The Pentagon sets it sights on Australia’s critical minerals

The energy transition has prompted a seismic shift in demand for specific minerals that are integral to producing clean technologies,…
Renewable mining: can mining clean up its carbon footprint?

Mining is fundamental to the global net-zero goal; it produces the minerals needed for low-carbon technologies such as wind turbines,…
Diversifying rare earths: inside Pensana’s Angolan and Yorkshire projects

The EU and the UK are almost solely reliant on imports from China for rare earth minerals that are integral…
Automation and excess: El Teniente leads mining’s automation drive

Automating aspects of mining has been a long-standing, if slow moving, trend within the industry. Its proponents say that autonomous…
A new deal: inside Australia and South Korea’s critical minerals strategy

Australia has long relied on its national resource potential to support its economy, with mineral exports accounting for a whopping…