WORLD PROSPECTS
Fast2Mine begins integration with Weir
On November 11 last year, Weir Group completed its acquisition of Fast2Mine, marking an important expansion of the company’ s global mining software portfolio. Founded in Belo Horizonte, Fast2Mine has established itself as a leading provider of open-pit fleet and operations management solutions, supporting more than 85 mining operations in multiple countries, monitoring over 7,000 assets, and enabling more than 25,000 active users daily across Latin America, Africa, Australia and North America, with a team of over 120 employees.
Weir CEO Jon Stanton said:“ Fast2Mine is highly complementary to the Micromine portfolio, particularly the Alastri and Pitram solutions. This acquisition strengthens our strategy to provide leading software solutions across the mining value chain.” He added that the company gives Weir an immediate and robust presence in the South American software market, while unlocking promising pathways for global expansion.
Fast2Mine will join Micromine as part of Weir’ s newly established Software Solutions group, together with NEXT Intelligent Solutions, MOTION METRICS™ and Track Pro™. This integrated ecosystem combines capabilities in planning, operations, maintenance, telemetry, analytics and AI to accelerate digital transformation across both open-pit and underground mines.
At Exposibram 2025 in Salvador, Brazil, Fast2Mine CEO and Founder Eder Griebeler described the company’ s role within Weir to IM Editorial Director Paul Moore:“ Micromine becomes our umbrella platform, and Fast2Mine strengthens the open-pit offering with a scalable and rapidly deployable FMS / MMS solution. Combined with Pitram’ s underground strength, we now offer a complete and globally competitive software portfolio.”
The company’ s portfolio includes Mining Control, Maintenance Control, Telemetry Control, MineVERSE and Mining Control BI. Fast2Mine’ s technology is already deployed in large-scale operations such as
ArcelorMittal’ s iron ore mine in Liberia, where its systems manage real-time fleet allocation, maintenance performance and truck-cycle optimisation for extensive fleets.
Griebeler went on to highlight the company’ s implementation model:“ Our system is easy to use, easy to implement and easy to integrate. We understand that managing a mine must be simple, and our enterprise-grade architecture, combined with a powerful user interface and experience, delivers high capability with low complexity. Built as a solution structured in modules, it adapts to different operational profiles and scales efficiently across all mining segments, enabling deployment in weeks and supporting the needs of both Tier 1 and Tier 2 operations.”
Collaboration between Fast2Mine and Micromine teams is already underway in Perth, focusing on product integration and joint strategic planning.“ Together, we are designing core components of the mining software ecosystem of the future,” Griebeler said.“ Weir’ s global reach – more than 200 offices worldwide – gives us a scale we have never had before.”
Fast2Mine CTO Gabriel Brandao reinforced to IM that artificial intelligence will be a central pillar of this next phase:“ AI enables operational guidance, pattern detection and the evolution toward semiautonomous and autonomous fleets. We have been preparing our platform to incorporate AI-driven algorithms across the entire mining workflow.”
The integration sets the foundation for a unified, high-performance and globally deployable software ecosystem designed to enhance productivity, visibility and sustainability in modern mining operations. https:// fast2mine. com / en /
Steer announces new autonomous haul truck deal
Norway’ s Steer has signed agreements with Hermann Wegener GmbH and Hülskens / Ebel for the deployment of Steer’ s autonomous haul truck solution across multiple quarry sites in Germany.
Together, the two companies operate approximately 15 quarries – with more than half identified as prime candidates for autonomous operation. The first three sites are scheduled for rollout during 2026, followed by another three larger and more complex sites in 2027.
“ This marks a major step for Steer and for the European quarry industry,” said Njål Gjermundshaug, CEO of Steer.“ These partnerships demonstrate that autonomy is no longer experimental – it’ s a proven technology delivering safety, efficiency, and a clear economic advantage for those who adopt early.”
Since launching its first autonomous trucks in 2022, Steer’ s solution has accumulated more than 40,000 operating hours across several active quarry sites in Norway. Just this week, another Steerenabled quarry went live in Norway, operating Caterpillar 775G haul trucks expected to move over 3 Mt of material annually – a milestone that it says further demonstrates the scalability and reliability of Steer’ s technology.
Steer’ s autonomous system will be fitted to a combination of new and existing Caterpillar and Komatsu haul trucks in Germany – primarily Caterpillar 772G / 775G and Komatsu 405-8 / 605-7 / 605-8 models. The loading operations will be handled by manned excavators such as the Volvo EC750, Cat 352, Cat 374F / NG, and Komatsu PC490, with operators both loading the trucks and monitoring their autonomous operations.
Hermann Wegener GmbH & Co. KG will be the first to implement Steer’ s solution, beginning operations at a quarry near Göttingen in Q1 2026.“ We are increasingly struggling to staff qualified drivers to maintain consistent production,” says Till Wegener, Managing Director of Hermann Wegener GmbH & Co. KG.“ Steer’ s solution gives us predictability, flexibility, and significantly lower cost per ton – it just makes sense. Like Romarheim in Norway, we’ ll redeploy our drivers to other tasks while the haul trucks run autonomously.”
Steer highlights the close collaboration with Zeppelin( Caterpillar) and Schlüter
6 International Mining | JANUARY 2026