Chinese underground loader and truck supplier Qingdao Fambition Heavy Machinery has completed its 2,000th unit of underground mining equipment, an FL105+ upgraded flagship LHD. The FL105+ targets high-productivity stoping operations, building on Fambition’s established FL-series platform used in Chinese hard-rock mines. For mine planners and maintenance teams, the milestone signals growing large-scale manufacturing capacity from a domestic OEM, potentially widening sourcing options for LHD fleets alongside established Western and Japanese suppliers.

Canada Growth Fund Inc and Natural Resources Canada’s Canada Critical Minerals Accelerator have signed a Strategic Investment Agreement with Teck Resources to expand germanium, gallium and antimony production capacity at the Trail Operations smelting and refining complex in British Columbia. The funding will support process upgrades at one of the world’s largest fully integrated polymetallic smelters, which already handles complex concentrates and refinery intermediates. For metallurgists and process engineers, the move signals stronger backing for by-product recovery circuits and potential debottlenecking of critical mineral streams.

Hot blastholes and reactive ground conditions are emerging as a critical safety and performance issue in large-scale open pits, prompting BME and its General Manager of Technology and Innovation, Nishen Hariparsad, to advance specialised blasting solutions. The company is focusing on formulations and initiation systems that remain thermally stable in elevated hole temperatures and chemically compatible with sulphide-rich or carbonaceous strata, where conventional emulsions can prematurely react. For drill‑and‑blast engineers, this signals growing need for rigorous temperature logging, reactive ground testing and tighter controls on sleep times and loading sequences.