Titan Mining’s Empire State Mines has agreed a term sheet with the US Army to lease about 97 acres at Anniston Army Depot, Alabama, for up to 100 years to build a commercial-scale graphite processing plant producing Purified Micronised Graphite (phase I) and, after customer qualification, Coated Spherical Purified Graphite. The facility will sit inside an existing defence installation, using established access, utilities and infrastructure to fast-track construction and integrate with Titan’s Kilbourne graphite concentrate operation in New York. The Army secures a right of first offer for up to 10% of uncommitted annual PMG and CSPG output, without direct taxpayer funding exposure.

Dutch private equity firm Kenzoll Capital and Namibian partner MSF Commercials plan a $50 million restart of the Elizabeth Bay diamond mine in the Sperrgebiet, targeting 10.5 million carats of combined onshore and offshore resources and funding exploration for additional minerals. The move follows a 67% collapse in Namibia’s diamond export value from NAD 5.1 billion ($306.9 million) in 2022 to NAD 1.7 billion ($102.3 million) in 2025, which the Bank of Namibia flags as a major drag on growth. For engineers and contractors, the project signals renewed capital for coastal brownfield mine infrastructure and marine-linked resource development in a previously uneconomic De Beers asset.

Canada’s mining sector has secured rare cross-government backing, with outgoing Mining Association of Canada CEO Pierre Gratton urging companies to convert faster federal-provincial impact assessments and Ottawa’s proposed Productivity Mega Deduction—allowing full expensing of eligible mine development capital on entry into service—into built projects. He pointed to a 23% fall in Canadian copper output and 44% drop in nickel over the past decade, contrasted with a 31% rise in gold production and Eldorado Gold’s McIlvenna Bay, described as the first new Canadian copper-zinc mine in more than a decade. Gratton warned that developers still risk losing political support if they mishandle Indigenous relationships, and pressed for “one project, one review” and exclusions for expansions and fully electric underground mines from federal impact assessment triggers.