Mining Productivity: Measurement, Structural Drivers, and Recovery Levers

Mining multifactor productivity fell again through 2024 to 2025, among the steepest declines across industries tracked by national statistical agencies in Australia and the United States. The structural causes are familiar: falling run-of-mine grades, rising strip ratios, longer haul cycles, and the capital dilution that follows major expansions. Overall equipment effectiveness at open-pit operations averages around 39%, far below comparable heavy industry, which implies that much of the gap is recoverable through operational rather than geological means. The report sets out a framework for measuring asset-level productivity, identifies where integrated operations centers, predictive maintenance, and digital optimization have produced measurable gains among the majors, and separates durable improvement from one-cycle effects, with cross-asset benchmarking through 2025.