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.

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.

Glencore has halted rail operations at its Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia after explosives hit its 150 km railway near Uribia, La Guajira, damaging a train in the sixth attack on the corridor this year. The mine itself, one of the world’s largest open pits with 2025 output of 16.8 million tonnes, continues operating while the National Army secures the line and engineers await access for damage assessment. Prolonged repairs could again choke inbound supplies and coal exports via Puerto Bolívar, exposing the operation’s heavy reliance on a single transport corridor.