Mulberry Industries has signed a non-binding offtake MoU with Ramaco Resources for customised rare earth oxide blends from the Brook mine in Wyoming, billed as the United States’ first new rare earth and critical mineral mine in more than 70 years and sourced from coal and carbonaceous ore. Ramaco has begun full-scale mining and is building a pilot processing plant to supply oxides including samarium, NdPr, yttrium, gallium and Dy/Tb on a non-exclusive basis. Mulberry will use the domestic feed to supplement its 10-year stockpile for NdFeB, SmCo and AlNiCo magnet production at its Georgia plant for defence, aerospace, automotive and robotics customers.

Allison Transmission has completed its US$2.7 billion acquisition of Dana Incorporated’s Off-Highway Drive & Motion Systems business, consolidating axles, drivelines and advanced propulsion systems for mining and construction equipment under one supplier. The deal folds Dana’s off-highway product lines, including heavy-duty drive and motion systems for rigid dump trucks and large wheel loaders, into Allison’s existing transmission and hybrid/electric portfolio. For mine operators and OEMs, this signals tighter integration between transmissions, drivetrains and electrified propulsion packages for high-tonnage haulage and loading fleets.

Ivanhoe Mines has started copper anode production at the Kamoa-Kakula direct-to-blister smelter in the DRC, a 500,000 tpa facility targeting 99.7%-pure anodes and an overall copper recovery of 98.5%, with first output achieved on 29 December, about five weeks after heat-up. The smelter is being ramped to handle concentrates from the Phase 1–3 concentrators, with 2026 mine output guided at 380,000–420,000 tonnes of copper and on-site concentrate inventories cut from 37,000 to about 17,000 tonnes. Stage 2 dewatering of the earthquake-flooded Kakula mine is complete, selective mining has restarted, and Stage 3 pump-station recommissioning is planned through Q2 2026 without constraining production.