First Phosphate has secured letters of interest for up to C$275 million in guarantees from Denmark’s Export and Investment Fund and additional LOIs from Italy’s CDP, SIMEST and MAIRE to advance the Bégin-Lamarche mine and a Ballestra-technology phosphoric acid plant at Port Saguenay under the G7 Critical Minerals Resilience and Production Alliance. Bégin-Lamarche hosts 41.5 million indicated pit-constrained tonnes at 6.49% P2O5 and 214 million inferred tonnes at 6.01% P2O5 in igneous ore targeted for LFP battery-grade phosphoric acid. The company has also locked in offtake for at least 200,000 t/y of phosphate concentrate and 60,000 t/y of phosphoric acid, de-risking project financing and downstream integration.

Hudbay Minerals has broken ground on the New Ingerbelle expansion at the Copper Mountain mine in British Columbia, a pushback of the historic Ingerbelle pit walls designed to access higher-grade ore with a stripping ratio about three times lower than current mining areas. Using existing Copper Mountain mill and fleet infrastructure, the project is forecast to produce about 750,000 tonnes of copper, 900,000 oz of gold and 5.5 million oz of silver, extending mine life beyond 2040. New Ingerbelle, now a B.C. priority resource project, preserves over 800 direct jobs and has refreshed participation agreements with the Upper and Lower Similkameen Indian Bands.

BHP is preparing to sell about $1.5 billion of Chilean power transmission assets, including roughly 1,000 km of lines feeding its Escondida, Spence and Cerro Colorado copper operations, in a move to concentrate capital on copper and other core commodities. The divestment follows last year’s $2 billion sale of a 49% stake in power lines serving its Australian iron ore business to Global Infrastructure Partners, a BlackRock subsidiary. In parallel, BHP and Lundin Mining have secured RIGI approval for the Vicuña copper district in Argentina, a $9.7–18 billion build-out combining Josemaría and Filo del Sol.