Atana Elements wins 2026 Mining Magazine Exploration Excellence Award

The energy transition runs on minerals the industry isn’t finding fast enough. Discoveries of developable resources have been declining for years, even as demand accelerates.

We built Atana Elements around a different playbook: apply modern AI/ML workflows alongside subsurface techniques at the forefront of oil & gas to critical mineral exploration. The result: we identified, explored, and monetized a remote Argentinian asset in under 3 years - 2 to 3X faster than is common for the rest of the industry.

“This entry clearly demonstrates exploration impact, combining drilling with modern techniques. Atana has achieved a major lithium exploration success with the discovery and advancement of the Salar de Jama project in Argentina, showcasing an innovative and exciting approach.”

The Mining Magazine Awards 2026 judges

Mining Magazine’s Exploration Excellence award isn’t just recognition for us. It’s the industry acknowledging this is where exploration is going - and we’re in good company: Anglo American (Surface Mining Excellence) and Fortescue (Safety Excellence) also took home Mining Magazine honours this year.

Read the article to learn more about the project and our approach: All the winners of Mining Magazine Awards 2026 (Mining Magazine, 7 September 2026).