CDE Group has secured orders from Stevin Rock to design and build two modular sand and aggregates wash plants rated at 1,000 t/h and 250 t/h for the company’s Al Ghail limestone operation in the UAE. The plants will process material from a site producing over 100 Mt/y, targeting improved recovery of manufactured sand and washed aggregates from high-volume quarry fines. For process and tailings engineers, the scale signals continued investment in wet processing to maximise resource utilisation and reduce waste in large Gulf limestone quarries.

Marimaca Copper has intersected 216 metres grading 0.96% copper and 7.2 g/t silver from 466 metres in hole SPRD-15 at Pampa Medina in Chile’s Antofagasta Region, including 62 metres at 2.2% copper and 21.5 g/t silver from 602 metres, extending the copper-silver system 300 metres. Step-out holes such as SPD-13 (222 metres at 0.5% copper from 194 metres) and SPRD-12 (56 metres at 0.95% copper from 748 metres) support continuity of oxide and sulphide mineralisation across a 3 km by 1.5 km footprint. With 30,000 metres of drilling planned in 2026 and Pampa Medina only 28 km from the fully permitted Marimaca oxide project (179 Mt at 0.42% copper, 50,000 t/y cathode over 13 years), the results point to a potentially large sulphide growth option adjacent to near-term heap-leach development.

Zambia’s Lobito Corridor rail scheme, designed to move high-value copper and cobalt from Solwezi, Kansanshi and Ndola to Angola’s Port of Lobito, is bypassing major manganese districts in Luapula and Central Provinces, where ore economics are dominated by bulk haulage costs. Nicholas Vafeas, founder of BluMelt Mineral Consulting, argues that manganese’s low value-to-weight ratio and highly concentrated global refining market mean Zambia’s strategic play lies in upstream production, not processing. He calls for “extraction corridors” via upgraded freight capacity at Kapiri Mposhi and new rail links into manganese belts, rather than a copper-only transit spine.