Tungsten West has signed an eight-year binding offtake agreement with US-based Elmet Technologies for 1,000 tonnes per annum of contained WO₃ from the Hemerdon tungsten-tin mine in Devon, valued at over £1.4 billion at current prices. The contract secures a long-term mine-to-market route into US and UK tungsten processing and manufacturing supply chains, alongside the UK National Wealth Fund’s investment of up to £71 million and its exclusive talks to procure up to 50% of Hemerdon’s annual tungsten output. For operators and project financiers, this combination of state backing and locked-in offtake materially de-risks Hemerdon’s restart and expansion plans.

High-grade rare earth intercepts at Rare Earths Americas’ 100%-owned Homer project in Brazil’s Goiás Alkaline province include multiple near-surface intervals above 2,000 ppm TREO over >10 m within clay-hosted soil and saprolite profiles. A fully funded US$5 million, 15,000 m reverse circulation and diamond drilling programme, now running four rigs, has already drilled 6,500 m and confirmed mineralisation across ~2.15 km², less than 7% of the 35 km² ring-shaped magnetic anomaly. Assays show heavy rare earth enrichment with HREO >30% of TREO, NdPr >25%, Dy+Tb >2%, plus niobium, tantalum and notable scandium requiring metallurgical evaluation.

BHP has suspended all operational activities at the Escondida copper mine in Chile’s Antofagasta region after a worker was killed during maintenance involving a front-end loader, with Chile’s Sernageomin deploying a regional investigation team to site. The fatality comes as BHP, which holds a 57.5% stake in Escondida alongside Rio Tinto’s 30%, is in contract negotiations with mine workers, with a vote due by the end of September. Any prolonged shutdown or subsequent strike could materially disrupt output at the world’s largest copper mine.