Software-first minerals company integrates autonomous haulage, drilling, and robotic sensing across mining and refining under a single AI operating platform
SAN JUAN COUNTY, Utah, April 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Mariana Minerals, the world’s only software-first, vertically integrated minerals company, today announced the restart of mining operations at Copper One in southeastern Utah. The restart marks a milestone in mining history: Copper One becomes the world’s first mine to deploy autonomous tools across all three operational domains (mining, refining, and capital project execution) unified under a single operating system.
Mariana acquired Lisbon Valley Mining Company in Q4 2025, gaining control of a roughly 10,000-acre permitted land package that has produced high-purity copper cathode since 2009. While refinery operations continued uninterrupted, mining was paused in late 2024. Mining operations resume this month with autonomous systems and autonomous orchestration active from day one.
“Copper One will be the first mine where delivering end-to-end autonomy is the priority, where it’s being rapidly deployed across mining and refining operations and coordinated by our internal software stack. That’s what MarianaOS makes possible. We chose to prove it here because the stakes are real: the U.S. has a structural copper deficit, and the window to close it is narrowing. We’re producing now and ramping output aggressively, with the primary goal of achieving fully-autonomous mining operations,” said Turner Caldwell, Co-Founder & CEO, Mariana Minerals.
MarianaOS: An Autonomy-First Mining Operating System
What makes Copper One unprecedented is not any single piece of autonomous equipment, but the intelligence layer coordinating them. MarianaOS integrates three core subsystems, MineOS, PlantOS, and CapitalProjectOS, into a unified platform spanning project execution through copper production.
On the mining side, Copper One will begin with integrating three best-in-class autonomous equipment platforms. Pronto’s turnkey Autonomous Haulage System (AHS) uses camera-based machine learning and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) to enable fully driverless haul truck operation, with OEM-agnostic retrofit capability across mixed fleets. Sandvik’s AutoMine® platform enables autonomous production drilling, allowing operators to simultaneously monitor multiple surface machine operations from a remote-operations control center. And Boston Dynamics’ Spot quadruped robots autonomously patrol the open pit, heap leach pad, and solvent extraction-electrowinning (SX-EW) refinery infrastructure. All of these data feed directly into MineOS, enabling fleet-wide optimization and continuous improvement.
PlantOS extends autonomous operations into refining by integrating real-time sensor data across the entire refining process (solution chemistry, flow rates, temperature, and electrowinning cell performance) into a unified control system. Machine learning models predict process drift, automatically adjust reagent dosing, and flags maintenance needs before they impact output. The result is a continuously optimized refinery that operates with minimal human intervention.
CapitalProjectOS redefines how capital-intensive infrastructure projects are planned and executed. Traditional projects often take a decade or more and frequently suffer from chronic cost overruns. CapitalProjectOS integrates process development, engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning data into a single platform that enables real-time progress tracking, predictive risk modeling, and automated schedule optimization. At Copper One, CapitalProjectOS is managing the expansion roadmap to scale output to 50,000 metric tons per year, coordinating heap leach pad expansions, refinery upgrades, and autonomous equipment deployment in parallel.
Built to Move Fast
While Mariana is actively constructing and developing greenfield projects – with the goal of compressing engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning timelines leveraging CapitalProjectOS – Copper One is uniquely positioned to accelerate deployment of MarianaOS at scale. With an existing open pit mine, heap leach pad, and SX-EW refining infrastructure already in place, Mariana will rapidly ramp production that would take years to replicate elsewhere.
Mariana’s longer-term plan is to scale Copper One output to 50,000 metric tons per year of high-purity copper cathode by 2030, leveraging additional proven deposits on the property and integrating copper scrap recycling.
A Critical Supply Gap
The U.S. currently imports approximately 50% of its refined copper. With domestic demand projected to nearly double by 2035 — driven by AI data centers, defense systems, EVs, and grid modernization — the supply gap is a national security issue. The Trump Administration’s Section 232 investigation cited copper imports as a direct concern, and the Pentagon has identified critical minerals vulnerability as a threat to the defense industrial base.
Domestic operations like Copper One, and the step-change in productivity that autonomous operations deliver, have become strategically essential.
About Mariana Minerals
Mariana engineers, builds, and operates mines and refineries, using proprietary AI and machine learning tools to accelerate project execution and optimize production across critically needed metals. Copper One is Mariana’s second active project, alongside Lithium One, the world’s first GWh-scale lithium extraction facility from oil and gas produced water, currently under construction in East Texas. Mariana has raised $120 million in total capital, including a Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and strategic investors.
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SOURCE Mariana Minerals
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