USA Rare Earth Inc has appointed Fluor Corp and WSP Global Inc as EPCM partners to advance the definitive feasibility study for its Round Top rare earth project in Texas, targeting heavy rare earths and critical magnet materials. The mandate covers process plant, mine infrastructure and associated large-scale infrastructure delivery, drawing on Fluor’s mining and processing design capability and WSP’s experience in complex project execution. For geotechnical and civil teams, early EPCM involvement signals imminent definition of pit design, waste storage, haul roads and water management concepts ahead of permitting and financing.

CIMIC Group subsidiaries Sedgman and Leighton Asia have secured separate contracts from Hindustan Zinc Limited to help deliver India’s first zinc tailings recycling facility at the Rampura Agucha Mine in Rajasthan. Sedgman will focus on process plant and tailings treatment infrastructure, while Leighton Asia will provide project delivery and construction services for the brownfield site. The project signals large-scale reprocessing of legacy zinc tailings at one of the world’s largest zinc operations, with implications for paste backfill design, tailings storage stability and metal recovery circuits.

Exploration activity across Australia this week includes Argent Minerals reporting high-grade silver intercepts at its Kempfield project in New South Wales, with mineralisation extending along strike from existing volcanogenic massive sulphide-style resources. Kalamazoo Resources advanced drilling at its gold targets in the Pilbara and Central Victorian Goldfields, focusing on structurally controlled lodes near historic workings and testing down-dip extensions below old stopes. Adelong Gold continued resource-definition work at the Adelong project in NSW, targeting shear-hosted quartz veins to upgrade JORC classifications and refine pit and underground designs.