Regal Rexnord is showcasing an end‑to‑end conveyor drive manufacturing process, walking through complete drive assemblies from heavy‑duty gearboxes to integrated backstops and couplings. The video focuses on how matched components within a single drive package are specified and assembled for mining conveyors, aiming to reduce misalignment, premature gearbox wear and backstop failures common in multi‑vendor systems. For plant and maintenance engineers, the approach signals tighter control over torque ratings, service factors and spares standardisation across critical conveyor lines.

Vulcan Energy has secured a €2.2bn financing package, including €1.18bn in senior debt from 13 institutions, €204m in German Government grants and €528m from an equity raising at €2.24 per share, enabling a positive FID for phase one of its Lionheart lithium and geothermal project in Germany’s Upper Rhine Valley. Phase one targets 24,000 tonnes per year of battery-grade lithium hydroxide monohydrate from geothermal brines using Vulcan’s VULSORB adsorption-type DLE, plus 275GWh of power and 560GWh of heat annually over a 30-year life. Key infrastructure will include geothermal-lithium production wells, substations, pipelines, a renewable power and heat plant, a lithium extraction plant and a central lithium plant, with commercial output planned from 2028 and lithium offtake fully contracted for the first ten years.

Artisanal and small-scale mining now involves an estimated 315 million people worldwide and supplies about 20% of global gold plus roughly 25% of both tantalum and tin, yet remains largely informal with significant social and environmental risks. Pan American Silver’s Brent Bergeron told the Resourcing Tomorrow 2025 audience that around half of the company’s sites now face artisanal activity, citing Peru where an estimated $8bn of gold leaves the country annually through opaque channels. Pan American is piloting on‑concession cooperatives, including a 98‑member group in Peru, and backs World Gold Council schemes where central banks buy artisanal gold in local currency to formalise supply chains.