World Mining Congress 2026 — Lima, Peru | June 24–26, 2026 Technical Program Introduction | Page 5 safety, ESG integration, international disclosure standards, and the systems-level thinking required to navigate the complexity of modern mining. Engineering the Next Era of Responsible Mining: Mark Cutifani's feature presentation, 'Mining and Our Role in Society: The Materials Solutions Industry,' sets the strategic frame. Supporting presentations address industry-academia collaboration models, in-place mining technologies, urban mining, and the integration of ESG principles from project inception. The session reflects a generation of mining leaders who have genuinely internalized the proposition that technical excellence and social responsibility are not in tension. From Incidents to Insight — Advancing Mine Safety: Presentations examine what incident data reveal about the effectiveness of critical controls, multi-criteria assessment for open-pit to underground transitions, and innovative injection technologies for ground consolidation. The session confronts the persistent challenge of translating safety knowledge into reliable operational behavior at the face. Integrating ESG and Innovation in Mining Systems: Life cycle assessment versus direct emission methods for quarrying, horizontal well applications for critical minerals, localizing the UN Sustainable Development Goals for mine project evaluation, and mechanized tunnelling for low-emission operations are presented. This session is notable for its methodological rigor: it asks not just whether mining can be more sustainable, but how sustainability claims can be measured, verified, and compared. Bringing Clarity to Disclosure: International reporting standards for sustainability, voluntary standard alignment with strong sustainability principles, and methodological tools for evaluating institutional constraints in mineral supply chains are examined. As investors, regulators, and downstream customers demand greater transparency, these sessions address the frameworks that will govern how the industry accounts for its impacts and contributions. Track 6: Mining Engineering and Mine Planning (27 presentations) This track addresses the core technical disciplines of underground and surface mine engineering across five sessions, with a particular emphasis on geomechanics, blast engineering, frontier mining environments, and the integration of uncertainty into planning. Transforming Underground Stability and Extraction: Geotechnical modelling of vertical stopes in kimberlite under Arctic conditions, graphene-reinforced GFRP ground anchors as sustainable alternatives to steel, innovative ground support techniques, and the three-level sequential recovery of ore pillars from sublevel stopping are among the presentations. The session reflects an underground mining community pushing the boundaries of what can be extracted safely and economically. Blasting, Explosives and Rock break: A quantitative flyrock framework for surface mining, the impact of load diameter and spacing on presplit design, extended sleep times for reactive ground, and the integration of digital technologies with advanced explosives for open-pit gold operations are presented. These contributions collectively advance the case that blasting remains a discipline with substantial room for safety improvement and value creation. From Seafloor to Haul Roads: The program’s most geographically diverse session spans deep-sea critical mineral collection systems, structural integrity management for critical mining infrastructure, haul road improvement through multidirectional rigid geogrids, and blasting-to-crushing cost minimization. The inclusion of deep-sea mining reflects the growing seriousness with which polymetallic nodule resources are being considered as a future supply source for battery metals. Mine Planning Under Uncertainty and Complexity: Constraint programming for mine sequencing with geomettalurgical variables, stochastic mine planning and design, probabilistic cash cost and NPV assessment using Monte Carlo simulation, and discrete-event simulation for underground decision-making
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