Canada has granted Italy priority access to its critical mineral reserves, reinforcing a year of bilateral deals including Eni’s nearly C$100 million offtake-linked investment in Nouveau Monde Graphite’s Matawinie graphite project in Québec and Italy’s entry into the Critical Minerals Production Alliance. Rome plans to collaborate with Ottawa on stockpiling, with a clear focus on battery metals and defence-related inputs such as graphite, nickel and rare earths. Parallel talks cover Canada’s planned purchase of Leonardo M‑346 advanced jet trainers and a proposed Defence, Security and Resilience Bank to finance long-term defence projects.

ABB has launched Grinding Connect, a global digital service suite for gearless mill drive (GMD) systems that aggregates real-time condition data from critical grinding assets into a secure cloud platform. The service enables remote diagnostics, anomaly detection and predictive maintenance scheduling for large SAG and ball mills, aiming to cut unplanned GMD outages and optimise planned shutdowns. For process and maintenance engineers, the key change is earlier visibility of drive and stator issues, allowing targeted inspections and spares planning rather than time-based overhauls.

Normet has launched the Spraymec 2100, a self‑propelled concrete sprayer aimed at small to mid‑size underground mine envelopes where compact dimensions and manoeuvrability are critical. The unit is described as meeting current safety and emission requirements, offering a modernised option for sprayed concrete in headings too constrained for larger Spraymec models. For geotechnical and mining engineers, it signals another OEM push to standardise mechanised shotcrete in smaller drives, potentially reducing reliance on manual spraying in narrow vein or selective mining operations.