Positioned in southeastern Utah, Mariana Copper One is an working copper mine and refinery at present producing high-purity copper cathode for the US market. The positioning, which Mariana Minerals acquired in late 2025, has been working for over 15 years and consists of an present open pit mine, a heap bioleaching operation, a hydrometallurgical refining circuit utilising solvent extraction and electrowinning, and important enlargement potential.
Over the previous 12 months, Mariana partnered with the present website workforce – beforehand Lisbon Valley Mining Firm – to develop and deploy superior software program and autonomous programs that may overcome previous operational challenges and broaden copper output.
The corporate states: “Our path ahead is obvious. Deploy PlantOS at scale to maximise copper restoration and scale back copper refining prices all through heap leaching, solvent extraction, and electrowinning. Restart mining operations with autonomous tools and orchestration by way of MineOS. Combine copper scrap processing into the refining circuit, leveraging PlantOS to handle feedstock variability and to place a significant dent in US copper scrap exports. Scale mixed output on the website to 50,000 metric tonnes per 12 months from each geologic and scrap feedstocks (leveraging CapitalProjectOS to speed up capital venture supply). That is Bodily AI at scale.”
Mariana Minerals argues that mining and refining operations require 1000’s of cross-functional choices every day and that in the present day these choices are knowledgeable by fragmented information administration programs and pushed by human instinct. “This results in important shift-to-shift efficiency variability and exposes the foremost problem we face in the present day: we don’t have sufficient people who know easy methods to function and optimise these advanced programs. MarianaOS breaks this paradigm.” MarianaOS brings collectively CapitalProjectOS, PlantOS and MineOS in a single single autonomy and AI-driven platform.
It says MarianaOS is a unified software program platform that connects course of improvement, capital venture execution, geologic modeling, mine planning, simulation, fleet orchestration, plant management, upkeep, and provide chain administration to automate operational optimisation throughout the worth chain. “This integration offers working groups a single, real-time view of distributed programs – from fleet telemetry and course of plant efficiency to market indicators and provide chain administration. Automated information pipelines guarantee info flows reliably and repeatedly, eliminating guide reporting delays and enabling quicker operational responses.”
On high of this built-in information layer, machine studying and reinforcement studying optimise advanced operational tradeoffs – drill patterns, haulage routing, mixing methods, plant throughput, reagent, and power use – whereas repeatedly studying from outcomes. The result’s a self-improving system that autonomously orchestrates choices throughout the mine, refinery, and logistics community, rising productiveness and decreasing prices.
MarianaOS makes use of simulation, predictive upkeep, and reinforcement studying to automate drill and blast operations, truck and shovel orchestration, and course of plant management based mostly on real-time information; it handles steady optimisation and information integration whereas engineers, geologists, operators, and planners validate fashions, monitor the operation, and execute important, exhausting to automate duties. “The experience and creativity of nice individuals stay important, however autonomy and agentic workflows allow us to mine and refine extra whereas the expert labour pool shrinks.”
It provides: “There’s a huge quantity of meat on the bone in optimising mining operations, and whereas some mines globally have launched distant managed and semi-autonomous operations, full implementation requires customized improvement with third events and excessive latency interfaces between website groups and expertise companions, can take over a decade, and nonetheless depends closely on human-in-the-loop management. MineOS compresses this implementation timeline, accelerating the deployment of autonomous mining and help tools, automating and integrating information pipelines between distributed programs, and driving human-in-the-loop operations to close zero.”
Shifting to processing – Copper One is integrating copper scrap processing immediately into the present refining circuit. ”Our solvent extraction-electrowinning system is well-suited to course of each major ore from mining operations and secondary copper from scrap feedstocks. By tooling the refinery to deal with each sources, we will put a really actual dent within the copper scrap exported from the US yearly, capturing home secondary assets that may in any other case be shipped abroad for processing and subsequent import. This dual-feedstock method aligns with a core thesis at Mariana that we’ve had from the start – trendy refineries have to be designed to course of each geologic and recycled feedstocks. As we scale Copper One to 50,000 metric tonnes of refined copper output per 12 months, scrap processing will likely be a significant contributor to our output and a proof level that recycling could be finished economically in the USA.”
