Rosh Pinah Zinc and Appian Capital Advisory have commissioned a new process water treatment plant at the Rosh Pinah mine in Namibia as a core element of the RP2.0 expansion. The plant is engineered to retreat and recycle process water from multiple circuits across the operation, cutting freshwater draw and reducing discharge volumes to the site’s TSF and evaporation facilities. For mine planners and process engineers, the scheme tightens the site water balance and may enable higher throughput under existing abstraction permits.

Copper prices, already up 40% in 2025 and hitting a record $14,500/t in January 2026, are being driven by AI-related demand, supply disruptions and looming cost pressures from energy and sulfuric acid shortages, with the ICSG now forecasting a 150,000 t deficit for 2026. The 10 largest copper mines produced 4.9 Mt in 2025, led by Escondida at 1,347.6 kt, while major assets such as Grasberg and Kamoa-Kakula face landslide, flooding and seismic-related constraints that could remove hundreds of thousands of tonnes from the market. For planners and project developers, the rankings emphasise concentration risk in a handful of long-lived operations and the growing influence of infrastructure bottlenecks, community blockades and state renegotiations on effective supply.

Brazil’s antitrust authority Cade has opened a competition probe into USA Rare Earth’s proposed $2.8 billion acquisition of Serra Verde Group, operator of the Pela Ema rare earth mine and processing plant in Goiás, including a 15‑year US offtake agreement for neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium. The review will determine whether the deal is a notifiable “concentration act” and could lead to approval, conditions or a full administrative case. Serra Verde, backed by a recent $565 million DFC funding package, expects Pela Ema to supply about half of ex‑China heavy rare earth output by 2027.