IMARC 2026 visitors are in for an exciting look at the future of mineral processing from one of the world’s leading equipment and technology vendors if an international virtual product launch event is a good guide.

Metso, which booked more than A$8.5 billion of sales last year and wants to grow that to circa-$12 billion by 2030, introduced important innovations spanning modern mineral processing flowsheets at its Metso Summit 2026.

“What I consistently hear from customers is [that] operations are expected to get more out of every step of the process,” Metso CEO Sami Takaluoma said at the start of the summit.

“Ore quality is changing. Access to water is challenging. Energy markets are less predictable. On top of that many sites are dealing with skills gaps and constant pressure to make maintenance work both faster and safer.

“That is a tough combination and it puts real pressure on performance, consistency and safety.

“Our customers are not looking for complexity; they are looking for solutions that work, that are easier to operate and that help deliver stable results day after day. That is how we think about innovation at Metso. For us, innovation is not technology for technology’s sake. It is about helping our customers improve control over productivity, energy and water efficiency, reliability and safety.”

The event heard from early users of new Metso crushing, screening, grinding, flotation and digital products as well as the Finnish manufacturer’s business leaders charged with pressing the value case for a raft of key innovations.

Yet, as minerals business president Piia Karhu noted, “every processing stage depends on the one before it and influences the one after it”.

“Achieving optimal performance requires holistic understanding of a site’s mineralogy and the entire flowsheet,” she said.

“Each innovation addresses important challenges but collectively they demonstrate how smarter solutions at critical points in the flowsheet can unlock benefits.”

Metso senior vice president, crushing, Olli-Pekka Oksanen told the forum audience the company’s new Primarok, Optirok and Durarok crushers, recently introduced to the market, filled product portfolio gaps and met customers’ changing application, performance and maintenance needs. He reiterated: “When primary crushing underperforms everything downstream pays the price: throughput, uptime, safety and cost efficiency throughout the life cycle. You need to get it all correct, and that is what our new generation of primary crushers are addressing.”

Durarok met mineral sizing demands presented by softer, stickier feeds. “Metso is known for its expertise in hard ore crushing and now we are bringing that expertise on crusher design, wear materials and chamber optimisation for hard to handle sticky material applications,” Oksanen said.

“Durorok is robust and maintenance-friendly, delivering reliable production and maximum endurance with its low speed and high torque. It can withstand heavy crushing loads and enable up to 40% greater wear component utilisation compared to alternative solutions.”

Oksanen said Optirok met a growing need for more compact, high-capacity crushing. “It allows flexibility in the design of primary crushing stations, reducing the overall footprint and consequently capital expenditure,” he said. “This is especially interesting for underground and semi-mobile plants where there are space constraints.”

The manufacturer’s new flagship Primarok gyratory crusher was described as its most advanced to date, building on more than a century of field expertise and “over 300 deliveries only in the past decade”.

Similarly, at a time when miners are looking for smart solutions to more challenging ore types and a shift to options such as high-pressure grinding roll (HPGR) circuits, Metso has come up with GFF Series screens that improve conventional sizing performance while also achieving precise dry classification (down to 0.3mm) without process water. Metso says the units combine “hybrid flip-flow and linear-motion screening” to eliminate blinding while maintaining high throughput and supporting HPGR circuit efficiency.

New mill collaboration rolling along

Metso and Germany’s Loesche GmbH signed a partnership agreement earlier this year and Metso’s HPGR and dry grinding VP Bjorn Nielsen told the summit audience results of testwork in Adelaide, South Australia, were living up to the high expectations people inside and outside the alliance had for the Metso Loesche VRM (vertical roller mill).

“[The] technology essentially combines crushing, grinding, classification and material transport in a single compact system,” Nielson said from Adelaide, where a pilot unit has been running on customer ore samples ranging from 1.5 tonnes up a whopping 40t.

“We get big benefits in energy, we can reduce water consumption, and all in that compact system that’s comparable in footprint to a traditional SAG-ball mill circuit.

“The vertical roller mill can do a very big size reduction. We take secondary crushed feed and we can grind all the way to the final product, so we can replace equipment such as HPGR, SAG mills, ball mills, pebble crushers … We completely eliminate grinding media from the circuit; we can reduce water consumption of the overall plant and we simplify the flow sheet in a nice compact arrangement.”

Another Metso Summit standout was its “next-generation coarse particle flotation technology”, aka the Sampo Cell, which Chilean copper miner Minera Las Cenizas has been putting through its paces.

Metso flotation VP Antti Rinne said the Chile deployment had been operating continuously on “industrial-scale” scavenger duty since earlier this year, demonstrating significant total plant recovery gains and the scalability of the Sampo Cell.

“The results show how customers can improve overall plant recovery without major changes to the existing flotation circuit,” he said.

Rinne said the industry was witnessing the start of a new era in mineral flotation.

“For decades the industry has accepted that it is difficult to recover larger mineral particles and as much as 30-to-40% can end up in final tailings,” he said.

“It is always a trade-off between throughput and recovery and traditional flotation equipment cannot recover particles beyond certain limits.

“Some newer systems try to fix this, but they often make the circuit more complex at the same time.

“It doesn’t have to be more complex.

“We don’t need mandatory pre-classification. There is also no need for fluidised bed water addition into our device, which eliminates additional dewatering systems. We just feed the slurry into the throat and create a stable environment where coarse particles can attach air bubbles and recover. One unit covers the full particle size range.

“It means more recovery from material you use to lose.

“It means less grinding or more throughput and tailings that are easier and safer to manage. It can be applied anywhere in the circuit, and it reduces plant footprint.

“It isn’t just a new technology it is a smarter way to design your flowsheet.”

As well as its hardware, Metso has been investing heavily in digital systems and has commercially launched its Metso Digital Production Management, Metso Data-driven Performance Analytics and Metso Safety Performance Platform.

The company’s minerals digital VP Arttu-Matti Matinlauri said at the forum Metso digital performance agreements created frameworks for long-term partnerships with customers, “focused on measurable performance improvement”.

“Together with our customers we identify opportunities, build improvement roadmaps and work together toward agreed performance targets,” he said.

“Customers can start with a single asset, a process island or an entire plant, giving them the flexibility to focus where digital solutions can make the greatest impact. All digital solutions can also be combined with Metso lifecycle services, including spares, wares, maintenance and support.

“These solutions help turn data into measurable results across the entire flow sheet.”