Canada has granted Italy priority access to its critical mineral reserves, reinforcing a year of bilateral deals including Eni’s nearly C$100 million offtake-linked investment in Nouveau Monde Graphite’s Matawinie graphite project in Québec and Italy’s entry into the Critical Minerals Production Alliance. Rome plans to collaborate with Ottawa on stockpiling, with a clear focus on battery metals and defence-related inputs such as graphite, nickel and rare earths. Parallel talks cover Canada’s planned purchase of Leonardo M‑346 advanced jet trainers and a proposed Defence, Security and Resilience Bank to finance long-term defence projects.

Scott Technology has secured a major contract to supply an Automated Modular Solution (AMS) crush cell to one of the world’s largest testing, inspection and certification providers, its first deployment of the Rocklabs AMS platform in a large-scale commercial minerals laboratory rather than an on-site mine lab. The modular crush cell automates sample receiving, crushing and splitting, aiming to standardise preparation workflows and reduce manual handling in high-throughput commercial assay operations. For geometallurgy and grade control teams, this signals growing availability of off-the-shelf automation in third‑party lab chains, not just bespoke mine-site systems.

Normet has launched the Spraymec 2100, a self‑propelled concrete sprayer aimed at small to mid‑size underground mine envelopes where compact dimensions and manoeuvrability are critical. The unit is described as meeting current safety and emission requirements, offering a modernised option for sprayed concrete in headings too constrained for larger Spraymec models. For geotechnical and mining engineers, it signals another OEM push to standardise mechanised shotcrete in smaller drives, potentially reducing reliance on manual spraying in narrow vein or selective mining operations.