Colorado School of Mines and ElementUSA have secured US$67 million from the US Department of Energy to build a rare earth element extraction and processing plant treating alumina refinery tailings at Gramercy, Louisiana. The DOE Office of Critical Minerals and Materials is backing the project as one of only two funded initiatives, targeting recovery of REEs from existing bauxite residue streams rather than new mining. For process engineers and tailings specialists, the scheme signals growing support for hydrometallurgical upgrading and reprocessing of legacy red mud deposits.

RCT – Powered by Epiroc has opened a new branch in Orange, New South Wales, co-located with fellow Epiroc acquisition JTMEC at Leewood Drive to consolidate automation, control and electrical support for local underground mines. The site will act as a regional base for commissioning and servicing RCT’s ControlMaster automation and remote-control systems on LHDs, trucks and drill rigs, alongside JTMEC’s mine electrical and power distribution services. For operators in the central west NSW gold and base metals belt, the move should shorten response times and simplify integration of OEM-agnostic automation with site power infrastructure.

Sandvik has introduced the Tundo RH700 cluster hammer unit for its DU300-series and DU400-series in-the-hole (ITH) longhole drill rigs, allowing rapid changeovers between standard production drilling and fully mechanised slot raising on the same carrier. The RH700 cluster configuration is aimed at boosting rig utilisation across existing ITH fleets by eliminating the need for dedicated raiseboring units and associated rehandling. For mine planners and drill‑and‑blast engineers, this supports more flexible slot design and potentially tighter drilling schedules without additional capital equipment.