Anuri is a high-grade underground nickel mine inaugurated in 2024 and described as one of the largest mining investments in Quebec in the last decade
Decision Lens
Raglan Mine’s first autonomous ore discharge at Anuri is not a proof-of-concept. It is a live underground operation running Sandvik’s AutoMine Multi-Lite platform across a mixed fleet—LHDs and haul trucks—in one of Canada’s most logistically constrained mining environments. The deployment model—gradual adoption, early management commitment, phased platform integration—is directly replicable and worth examining against your own automation roadmap.
90-Second Brief
This week, raglan Mine, a Glencore-owned underground nickel operation in Nunavik, Quebec, achieved its first autonomous haul truck ore discharge at surface at the Anuri mine in March 2026. The truck was operated remotely from a control centre 14 km from the mine portal. The site now runs five autonomous LH517i LHDs and two Toro TH663i haul trucks under Sandvik’s AutoMine Multi-Lite system, alongside teleoperated longhole drills and automatic jumbo drills. The operation attributes its progress to two factors: gradual technology adoption and full site management buy-in from the outset.
What’s Actually Happening
Anuri is a high-grade underground nickel mine inaugurated in 2024 and described as one of the largest mining investments in Quebec in the last decade. It forms part of Raglan Mine’s broader Sivumut project, which also includes the Qakimajurq underground operation.
The autonomous haulage milestone represents the culmination of a phased platform build. Raglan began with Sandvik’s AutoMine Lite installation, then progressed to the Multi-Lite system over the past two years. The fleet now includes five LH517i LHDs and two Toro TH663i haul trucks on AutoMine kits, plus two teleoperated DL421i longhole drills and four DD422i intelligent jumbo drills running on a separate platform.
The first autonomous ramp climb and surface discharge at Anuri was executed from the remote operations centre 14 km from the mine. The operation is running in a genuine subarctic environment with all the logistical complexity that implies—weather, remoteness, and a workforce that includes a significant Inuit employee cohort trained under the site’s Tamatumani program.
Anuri is anticipated to extend Raglan Mine’s operational life by at least 20 years.
Why It Matters for Mining Operations Directors?
The deployment model is the story. Raglan’s site management explicitly named gradual adoption and early leadership commitment as the two drivers of success—not the technology itself. This is consistent with what separates productive autonomous deployments from stalled pilots across the industry: the institutional side failing before the technical side does.
Remote operations centre at 14 km. Operating a haul truck autonomously from a surface facility 14 km from the mine portal demonstrates that the control infrastructure does not need to be at the portal. For operations with challenging portal access or where reducing personnel underground is a priority safety objective, that separation is operationally significant.
Mixed-fleet autonomy is running, not planned. Five LHDs and two haul trucks on AutoMine, plus drills on a separate platform, in one operation simultaneously. The integration complexity of running multiple autonomous and semi-autonomous systems across a single mine cycle is a real operational challenge—and Raglan is navigating it in production conditions.
Workforce model. An Inuit employee operating a 63-tonne haul truck while simultaneously controlling a scoop from the same teleoperation seat is not an incidental detail. It directly addresses the FIFO skills concentration problem—teleoperation expands the operator pool and changes the geographic dependency of skilled roles.
The Forward View
Anuri’s 20-plus year reserve base means this autonomous deployment will run long enough to generate meaningful operational data—ramp productivity, fleet availability under autonomous conditions, maintenance requirements for AutoMine-equipped trucks in subarctic underground environments. That data, when it becomes available through industry channels, will be more useful to peer operations than the milestone announcement itself.
The Sandvik Multi-Lite architecture—designed for multi-machine management in a single tunnel environment—is likely to see increased scrutiny from underground operations planning similar phased rollouts. The Raglan case gives AutoMine a documented subarctic underground reference site with a completed haul truck cycle, which moves the technology further along the risk curve for comparable operations considering similar investment.
The broader question is whether the gradual adoption model—Lite to Multi-Lite over multiple years—is the right sequencing for operations with tighter capital and time constraints, or whether the Raglan timeline reflects a deliberate pace that not all operations can match.
Peer Moves
Sandvik’s AutoMine platform is deployed across multiple underground operations globally, but subarctic underground references with haul truck autonomy at this elevation and logistics profile are less common. Raglan’s Anuri deployment adds a documented northern Canadian underground nickel reference to that set. Operations benchmarking autonomous haulage in cold-climate or remote underground environments should track how Raglan reports fleet availability and productivity data as the deployment matures.
What We’re Uncertain About?
The source article does not provide production throughput data, fleet availability figures, or cycle time comparisons between autonomous and manually operated equipment at Raglan. The milestone is confirmed—first autonomous discharge at surface—but the productivity and cost-per-tonne implications are not quantified in available reporting.
It is not confirmed whether the two haul trucks currently running on AutoMine kits are operating in fully autonomous mode continuously or whether the first surface discharge represents an initial capability test rather than steady-state autonomous production. The distinction matters for anyone evaluating fleet availability implications.
The 20-year life extension claim is characterized as an anticipation, not a confirmed reserve or resource statement, and should be treated accordingly in planning context.
One Question to Bring to Your Team
If we were to replicate Raglan’s phased AutoMine adoption model in our underground operation—starting with LHDs before haul trucks—what would the minimum management commitment look like in year one, and do we currently have the site leadership bandwidth to sustain it without the program stalling at the Lite phase?
Sources
- Im-mining — Glencore-owned Raglan achieves autonomous haulage milestone at Anuri (Link)
