What a year! The Mining Magazine Awards 2025 received hundreds of incredible entrants, which were whittled down to twelve shortlists packed with excellence. Now, the shining lights of the mining industry can be revealed.
"The judges for the Mining Magazine Awards 2025 were struck by the breadth and depth of innovation in the sector. These awards show an industry crackling with forward-thinking experts, facing the challenges of the day head on," Mining Magazine editor and presiding judge Beth McLoughlin said.
"We keep a watchful eye on the industry at Mining Magazine, and have encountered many of the winners in our regular coverage. But it was a treat too to discover new companies and technology in the course of judging these awards. Congratulations to all the deserving winners!"
Winners were the entries that received the highest score in aggregate from the judges. In some categories, entries that just missed out on winning have been designated as ‘Highly commended' by the judges.
Table of Contents
- Bulk Handling Award
- Drill & Blast Award, in collaboration with GeoDrilling International
- Exploration Excellence Award
- Fleet Excellence Award
- Mineral Processing Award
- Net Zero Achievement Award
- Partnership of the Year Award
- Safety Excellence Award
- Software Excellence Award
- Tailings Innovation Award
- Technology & Innovation Award
- Woman of the Year Award
- Personality of the Year Award
Bulk Handling Award
Winner: Hägglunds, a Bosch Rexroth company, for its Fusion drive
What the judges said:
The Fusion drive is a technically solid and remarkably efficient drive solution for bulk handling. The judges were particularly impressed by how it clearly presented improvements on geared methods, and its ability to be mounted directly on feeders and conveyors.
Drill & Blast Award, in collaboration with GeoDrilling International
Winner: Hexagon, for Drill Assist
What the judges said:
The judges wrote that Hexagon's AI-powered drilling automation system "moves drill autonomy forward". They were particularly impressed by the reduced training time for operators and the boosted penetration rates reported. The strong data capture and OEM flexibility set this submission apart, and they noted that Drill Assist could prove to be an especially powerful technology brownfield mining sites.
Highly commended: Epiroc, for its Automatic Bit Changer
Exploration Excellence Award
Winner: Fleet Space Technologies, for ExoSphere
What the judges said:
Fleet Space's ExoSphere "presents a novel application of satellite-based geophysics and AI, characterised by rapid deployment, high scalability, and strong potential to transform greenfield exploration". Already in use by the major miners, it boasts impressive features and technologies.
Highly commended: VRIFY, for its DORA platform
Fleet Excellence Award
Winner: Epiroc, for LinkOA
What the judges said:
Epiroc's LinkOA is a "genuinely innovative" fleet technology. It stands out for its flexibility. As an OEM-agnostic platform, it appeals to a wide range of mining applications, and its retrofitting capabilities offer flexibility to mines that are making difficult decisions about where to deploy capital.
Mineral Processing Award
Winner: Endolith Mining, for its engineered microbes
What the judges said:
Endolith has developed a "truly novel approach turning waste into copper with engineered microbes". The judges were impressed by the speed of the processing and its adaptability. Endolith's platform is scalable and has proven its effectiveness on-site. It is one to watch, as it "offers a new direction for processing."
Net Zero Achievement Award
Winner: Binding Solutions Limited, for its cold agglomerated iron ore pellets (CAPs)
What the judges said:
"Cold agglomeration offers a disruptive low-carbon pathway in pelletising, with strong economic and environmental performance proven at industrial scale", our judges said in response to Binding Solution's submission. They highlighted the "major savings in emissions, energy use and costs for pellet production" in an area of the mining industry fraught with high carbon emissions. While the technology is in its early stages, its results are very encouraging.
Partnership of the Year Award
Winner, miner: Aris Mining, for its pioneering formalisation model
What the judges said:
Aris Mining has developed a "pioneering social transformation model formalising 3,300 miners," which is having a major ESG impact. This is no symbolic programme, with the small-scale miners contributing a hefty 47% production share. This programme has rightly achieved international recognition and points the way for other operations in Colombia and around the world. Aris's model is "deeply integrated, replicable, and long-term".
Winner, equipment: Volvo and Brønnøy Kalk for the world-first fully driverless trucks in a complex quarry setting
What the judges said:
Volvo and Brønnøy Kalk's achievement almost speaks for itself: achieving fully driverless trucks in a complex quarry. But this partnership also showed boldness. By sharing the risk in a Transport-as-a-Service model, Volvo and Brønnøy Kalk are redefining partnerships between original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and operators. This team-up leads the way at the dawn of mining automation's commercial maturity.
Safety Excellence Award
Winner: Kenmare Resources
What the judges said:
Kenmare Resources has created a remarkable safety culture in one of the world's poorest countries, Mozambique. The safety statistics are quite remarkable: a (lost time injury frequency rate (LTIFR) of 0.06 is enviable. Other miners can learn from the strong leadership focus in safety that is embedded at Kenmare's operations. Their practical frontline initiatives deliver consistent and impressive outcomes.
Software Excellence Award
Winner, management: MyPass Global, for its compliance system
What the judges said:
MyPass has developed a leading workforce compliance system. It has won wide adoption and shown strong results in mobilisation, safety, and fraud detection. It displays a clear return on investment, and with a growing international uptake, is looking like the industry standard.
Winner, operations: VRIFY, for its mineral targeting and visual communication tools
What the judges said:
VRIFY's "innovative and relevant" AI-powered mineral targeting system, DORA, and its "striking" visual communication tool, Viz, are already winning wide adoption. Both pieces of software are powerful tools for junior miners in particular, who need support for drilling decisions and to attract capital by showcasing their deposits and their operations with clear data and images.
Tailings Innovation Award
Winner: Vale, for its vast Waste to Value programme
What the judges said:
Far from trying to leave the awful failures at Samarco and Brumadinho in the past, Vale has taken these tragedies to the heart of its business, making great strides in tailings innovation. Vale's Waste to Value programme is a huge, ambitious and well-integrated circular economy model with measurable reuse and carbon savings. Its strong industrial focus gives real heft to its sustainability agenda.
Technology & Innovation Award
Winner, miner: Rio Tinto, for Nuton, its commercial bioleaching platform for copper sulphides
What the judges said:
In Nuton, Rio Tinto has created an environmentally friendly, low-cost and efficient copper extraction method. Now, we have a commercial bioleaching platform for extracting copper from sulphides with high recovery and minimal footprint. In a world of falling grades, a process that can make copper sulphides economically attractive is a massive achievement.
Winner, equipment: Hyperspectral Intelligence, for its Hyperspectral Handscanner
What the judges said:
"Oh wow, this is great," one judge said, simply. Its handheld/backpack rock core scanner and hyperspectral point sensors are great innovations, and when combined with Hyperspectral's data processing capabilities, provide powerful tools for companies to understand drill cores and other rock at speed. A big advance in scanning.
Highly commended: Anglo American, for its Aquila coal mine's remote autonomous longwall operations
Woman of the Year Award
Winner: Ana Gabriela Juárez, for her mining storytelling spirit
What the judges said:
Ana is really making a difference for the industry through her storytelling and engagement. We loved her humble nature and storytelling spirit. She has written and published two children's books that are available in multiple languages with the message that mining is important, and it can be done safely and responsibly. She is certainly deserving of the award for this year.
Personality of the Year Award
Winner: Helena Hedblom, Epiroc president and chief executive, for being a champion of young people, technology and innovation
What the judges said:
Helena Hedblom is a champion for young people, technology and innovation. She is expertly leading Epiroc, a company with an extraordinary breadth and depth of industry-leading technology, through a tumultuous period for the mining industry. She is a figure that all in the industry should admire.
