Diggers & Dealers 2026: All the latest news from Day 3 of the annual mining forum in Kalgoorlie-Boulder

Another Diggers has drawn to a close, with forum chair Jim Walker saying the 35th annual event drew 2500 delegates, with 70 presenters speaking and 156 companies exhibiting in the expo pavillion.

QMines executive chairman Andrew Sparke said there was no better time to be talking about copper after the red metal’s price rocketed.

The latest numbers on Bloomberg show LME copper settled at $US14,066.50/t ($A19,975) in London while on Comex, it was $US6.65 a pound at 12.45pm in Shanghai, less than 1 per cent below the record set in May.

“There are very few listed copper developers left,” Mr Sparke said.

“We’ve just seen (an) Evolution takeover proposal for Carnaby. We’ve just seen Austral make a bid for Hammer Metals. We’ve just seen Aeris take over Peel.

“There’s no one left.

“We will be the next ... mid-tier copper producer listed on the ASX, and we’re going to take this through.”

The final presentation of the annual forum was delivered by 29Metals chief executive James Palmer, who said the company was well positioned to capitalise on a favourable copper supply-demand dynamic.

He pointed to more than 2 million tonnes of contained copper in mineral resources across 29Metals’ two Australian assets, the Golden Grove mine in WA’s Mid West region and Capricorn copper project north of Mt Isa in Queensland.

Both had long life potential and significant geological upside, Mr Palmer said.

Catalyst Metals boss James Champion de Crespigny detailed how rapidly the gold miner was expanding the Plutonic operation, 195km northeast of Meekatharra in the Mid West region, since acquiring it three years ago.

It had gone from one mine to four, and two more would be added over the next two years, the son of Normandy Mining founder Robert Champion de Crespigny said.

“It’s really been a wonderful success ... this is really why we talk about the Plutonic Belt as being one of the great belts of Western Australia,” he told delegates.

“It sat there unloved for many, many years in foreign ownership hands.

“The company has simplified its strategy, simplified its marketing narrative over the last 12 to 18 months particularly. And it’s talking about six mines into one mill.

“Talking about delineating 2 million ounces of reserves, currently at 1.5Moz. It’s talking about getting to 200,000 ounces (annual gold production).”

Catalyst produced 103,761oz in the 2025/26 financial year, up from about 60,000oz when it took ownership.

The hope was that one of the new mines in particular, based on the deposit named Cinammon, would “really allow us to suffocate that mill”.

“Achieving that 200,000oz production target, we don’t think is something that is in question, but rather just a matter of time,” Mr Champion de Crespigny said.

Look who’s rocked up to Diggers?

Comedian Dave Hughes will take to the stage later tonight at the Westrac Gala Dinner to entertain more than 2600 delegates.

He was spotted earlier today wandering the exhibitor’s pavillion.

Jim Beyer said Regis was still waiting for its day in court to fight a Section 10 heritage order that has thrown plans for its McPhillamys gold project in NSW into limbo.

McPhillamys is the miner’s key growth project but is stuck in regulatory pergatory.

Former environmental minister Tanya Plibersek in August 2024 essentially blocked the development based on Aboriginal heritage concerns relating to a creation story about a mythical blue-banded bee.

But Beyer told diggers delegates it had not given up on the asset.

“This is a great deposit and well worth the effort of putting into it,” he said.

“And not only that, it’s not just the deposit that’s there that’ll go for about 10 years. Average is about 187,000 ounces a year. But there’s material and there’s exploration all around it.”

He said Regis had developed two pathways to production, no matter the outcome of the court fight.

While Regis would prefer its original development plan, remains it “has a plan for either outcome”.

Regis Resources boss Jim Beyer has described FY26 as “a pretty good year”, with the gold miner hitting the top end of guidance with 397,000 ounces and holding cash and gold of $1.2 billion.

The miner owns the Duketon hub in the northern Goldfields - which is forecast to produce between 240,000 and 270,000oz this year - and has a 30 per cent share of the Tropicana gold mine, along with AngloGold Ashanti, which will give it another 120,000 to 130,000oz.

Addressing the “lost opportunity” of Genesis Minerals outbidding Regis for Vault Minerals, Beyer said there were still plenty of value creation opportunites outside of acquisitions.

“This graph in 2021 at Duketon, we had 1.4 million ounces, and we have 1.389 million ounces today, or at the end of December 25, in our reserves,” he said.

“Pretty much the same, but in that time, we have we have produced 1.2 million ounces.

“That is genuine value creation. It’s not through acquisition. It is through finding it and converting it into reserves.”

New WA Mines Minister Daniel Pastorelli has landed at Diggers and was given a tour of the forum by chair Jim Walker.

The former Labor staffer, and Member for Landsdale, took the reins from Secret Harbour MP Paul Papalia who quit Parliament last month.

Westgold Resources has used its appearance at Diggers this year to reveal a “capital light” expansion of its Cue processing hub that will push annual capcity from 1.4 million tonnes to 1.7mt.

It said the plan was underpinned by increasing underground mine outputs from its Big Bell and Great Fingall mines near Cue.

“There is also potential for third-party ore supply via existing ore purchase agreements and if drilling is successful, from Westgold brownfields open pit resource targets at Big Bell South and Cuddingwarra,” it said.

In a short and sharp address that lasted just over a tidy seven minutes, CEO Wayne Bramwell said today also marked the two-year anniversary of its acquisition of its Beta Hunt and Higginsville asets in the southern Goldfields.

“The next phase - I’m smashing through this - and to explain the next phase of our journey, it’s really simple. Bigger mines need bigger mills,” he said.

“We are very quietly confident about the ability to continue to grow our outputs, lower our costs, and increase our returns to shareholders.”

Bellevue Gold’s boss Darren Stralow has handed out the bouquets to Bill Beament’s Develop Global - despite booting the contractor from its namesake mine near Leinster earlier this year.

Perenti subsidiary Barminco picked up a $850 million job in May and has now been on site since the start of the month.

Operational issues plagued Bellevue for much of 2024 and 2025, with several explosive charge misfires and lower-than-expected grades among the issues.

But taking to the stage to deliver the final address for the lunchtime break, Stralow said he had been fielding plenty of questions about the contractor changeover.

“I guess the two comments I want to make on it is: look, first of all, you know, thanks to the Develop team,” he said.

“You know, they’ve been on site for years, helping us build the platform and build the mine. They’ve done a great job over time, and their performance over the last few months of the contract have been really professional and really strong.

“They set up big stockpiles and set up a really good platform to kick off with the Barminco team.

“We’re on day five now of the new contract, so I can’t give you ... it’s a long-term relationship.

“We got a four plus one year contract, so we’re expecting them to be there for a long time, and they’re a great partner to have because they’re a big company.”

Stralow said Bellevue was now a $1.9 billion gold miner with $206 million in cash and gold and only $100m of debt and five established mining areas to support consistent FY27 delivery of between 150,000 and 170,000 ounces.

“We’ve always talked about ramp up. Now we’re talking about a really steady operation,” he said.

“We’re talking about a really strong balance sheet that will continue to go in the next 12 months, and we’re finally talking about growth at the asset and beyond.”

The boss of Australia’s biggest lithium pure-play believes a recent resurgence in supply across the industry will not cause a market crash reminiscent of what occurred three years ago.

Domestic lithium producers, including PLS, Mineral Resources, Core Lithium and the Wesfarmers-SQM joint venture, have restarted mothballed mines or are expanding existing operations amid a more than tripling of the spodumene concentrate price over the past year to beyond $US2000 a tonne.

The recent restart of a mega lithium mine in China and swift ramp up of output in Australia — the world’s number one producer of the battery metal — has stoked fears of a supply glut similar to when the last lithium bubble burst.

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