Posted on October 21, 2026
Dredge Robotics is using robotic technology to safely recover valuable material from lined ponds while restoring capacity and supporting production.
Mining companies can spend years searching for new resources, yet valuable material can sometimes remain within an existing operation.
To help sites make the most of these untapped resources, Dredge Robotics is applying robotic technology to lined ponds, where conventional dredging methods may leave high-density material inaccessible.
The company specialises in robotic dredging, sediment management and material recovery, designing, building and operating its own systems.
The technology was initially developed to remove sediment from lined ponds while protecting high-density polyethylene (HDPE) liners and keeping personnel away from hazardous environments.
The original objective was to protect the liner, restore pond capacity and remove accumulated sediment.
Working directly above the liner, however, revealed that higher-density material can settle into the lowest part of the sediment profile, where conventional dredging encounters limitations on safe operation.
“The resource has not changed; the ability to access it safely and economically has,” Dredge Robotics chief executive officer Antony Old told Australian Mining.
“A clever machine is not necessarily a commercial breakthrough.
“A commercial breakthrough occurs when the technology can recover more value than it costs to operate.”
That proposition was first demonstrated at a gold operation. The site’s pond had previously been dredged using a barge, with approximately one metre of material left above the liner as a safety buffer.
When Dredge Robotics began removing material from this lower zone and returning it to the head of the processing circuit, production changes began tracking the material being recovered.
The client repeatedly asked the team to stop and restart dredging, and eventually the campaign had to be slowed because the operation could not process the recovered material as quickly as it was being lifted.
“The gold had not suddenly appeared. The pond had not changed. Only access to the material directly above the liner had changed,” Old said.
The result shifted the role of dredging from pond maintenance towards production support.
Old said the commercial test for the technology was ultimately whether the value recovered could justify the cost of accessing it.
“What begins as an unavoidable maintenance cost becomes an opportunity to return valuable material to production while also restoring the operating capacity of the pond,” Old said.
Dredge’s technology has since been applied across other commodities, including nickel, copper as well as lead operations.
At a nickel operation, the system was adapted to recover double ammonium nickel salts from aggressively acidic pond liquor. The material had crystallised and required substantially more mechanical energy to break down and mobilise while protecting the HDPE liner.
At a major copper operation, Dredge Robotics completely cleaned a sediment filled process pond while the pond remained operational. During a plant shutdown, dredging operated 24 hours a day, with recovered material directed to an operating thickener so the processing circuit could continue producing.
A lead producer has also completed two campaigns within 12 months, recovering concentrate accumulated on the HDPE liner. The recovered material was immediately saleable, with both campaigns returning value at multiples of the dredging cost.
“Gold proved the value. Nickel proved the chemistry. Copper proved the scale. Lead proved the repeatability,” Old said.
Across a relatively modest number of campaigns, client production, assay and valuation data indicates that more than $100 million of previously trapped material has been returned to processing or recovered as saleable product.
Dredge’s opportunity extends beyond resource recovery, with the dredging process proving that the same work can address existing pond maintenance requirements and restore operating capacity whilst potentially turning a maintenance activity into production support.
“The pond already exists. The material is already inside the operation. The client already owns it,” Old said.
That idea challenges the boundary of what is considered recoverable. Material may already have been mined, milled and processed, but previously, access limitations may have necessitated that value is left behind.
