The Problem

As ore bodies become deeper, more complex and lower grade, the mining industry faces growing challenges around energy use, water consumption, waste generation, costs and social licence. Conventional mining methods rely on large‑scale material movement, energy‑intensive comminution and surface tailings storage, all of which contribute significantly to environmental impact and cost. These challenges are particularly acute for large underground deposits where geological variability and marginal grades can make conventional approaches increasingly inefficient or uneconomic.

The Opportunity

In-Place Mining (IPM), incorporating in-situ leaching and other low-footprint mining methods, represents a transformative approach to mineral extraction. Rather than transporting all material to surface for sorting and processing, IPM focuses on selective recovery of value in situ or as close as possible to the mining face, with the potential to significantly reduce waste, emissions and surface disturbance. Our work has focused on defining what is required to make the transition from concept to practical application.

IPM includes three main variants:

• In-Situ Recovery (ISR): Injecting lixiviant through wells directly into an orebody to dissolve and recover valuable minerals without excavation. Mature in some commodities such as uranium but still limited by geological constraints.

• In-Mine Recovery (IMR): Fragmentation and in-stope leaching of ore, reducing material hauled to surface. Currently at early development stage.

• In-Line Recovery (ILR): Selective extraction and near-face processing, combining mechanical cutting, sorting and local processing to leave waste underground and pre-concentrate feed ore.

Each approach targets different deposit types and operating conditions, and presents unique trade-offs in terms of technical feasibility, environmental impact and operational complexity.

IPM is applicable to deposits where conventional mining faces limitations, such as:

• low-grade or marginal ore bodies

• deep or geotechnically complex deposits

• areas with strong environmental or social constraints

It enables new ways to extract value by reducing dilution, minimising waste handling and improving selectivity. Depending on the variant, it can also reduce surface infrastructure requirements and significantly lower the environmental footprint of mining operations.

The Benefits

The value of IPM lies in its potential to fundamentally change how mining systems are designed and operated. By minimising material movement and keeping waste underground, IPM can significantly reduce energy use, water consumption and tailings generation. This directly supports ESG objectives while also improving the overall efficiency of the operation.

In addition, IPM opens the possibility of exploiting resources that are currently uneconomic or technically unfeasible, creating new value from existing assets. However, its applicability depends strongly on deposit characteristics and requires careful technical and economic evaluation.

Using internally developed tools and mining method models, Mining3 assesses how different IPM configurations impact mine performance and economics across the full value chain. This includes linking operational parameters such as extraction rates, material handling and energy use with life-of-mine economic outcomes.

These capabilities have been applied by Mining3 in multiple studies, including work with major mining companies to assess hybrid mining systems and alternative extraction methods. This allows IPM to be evaluated not as a concept but as a quantified business case under realistic operating conditions.

Call to Action

Mining companies, technology providers, researchers and other partners interested in In-Place Mining are invited to work with Mining3 to assess where IPM could create practical value. Mining3 has developed capabilities to model and evaluate the opportunity, including the deposit characteristics, mining conditions, operating assumptions and value drivers that determine whether ISR, IMR or ILR may be technically and economically attractive for a mine.

Talk to Mining3 about your In-Place Mining opportunity.We can help to frame the use case, quantify the value proposition, test operating scenarios and identify the conditions where IPM could support lower impact, higher value mining.