Geomechanics.io

Ausa has launched the DR902AHG, a 9‑tonne reversible dumper powered by a 55.4 kW Deutz engine and equipped with a swivel-skip configuration for road, industrial and large infrastructure projects. The machine debuts Ausa AI Vision, a standard-fit safety system combining five cameras, AI processing and a radar unit on the skip side to monitor a 5 m envelope and extend object detection beyond that range. The system delivers real-time visual and audible alerts, with warning distances dynamically adjusted to machine speed to improve operator reaction time around blind spots.

Ramboll has secured a place on the UK government’s £3.5bn Construction Professional Services 2 framework, a four‑year route to market run by the Government Commercial Agency to replace the former Crown Commercial Service framework. The appointment gives Ramboll direct access to work with major departments such as the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, plus more than 200 public sector bodies including NHS trusts and local authorities. CPS 2 also covers existing clients Network Rail and National Highways, with Ramboll forecasting up to £20m in additional revenue across transport, infrastructure, buildings and energy.

Investcorp has acquired London-headquartered Smart Managed Solutions, a mechanical and electrical facilities management specialist providing critical HVAC, electrical, fire, water and gas system maintenance across UK sites. Founded in 2017, Smart has grown organically at over 30% per year to more than £100m in revenue, serving a fragmented market for mission-critical building services. Investcorp plans to back further UK expansion via bolt-on acquisitions, technology investment and organisational professionalisation, while co-founders Lee Bainbridge and Alex Wilkin retain a meaningful equity stake.

Scottish architecture firm Smith Scott Mullan has shifted to employee ownership, with owners Graham Acheson, Eugene Mullan and Rick McCluggage transferring 100% of their shares into an employee ownership trust. The Edinburgh-based practice, which works extensively on housing, education and community infrastructure projects across Scotland, will now be controlled on behalf of its 30-plus staff. For public-sector clients and contractors, the trust model signals continuity of design leadership and long-term commitment to framework agreements and multi-phase regeneration schemes.

Kier has secured a £101m construction continuation contract from the Environment Agency and Somerset Council for the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier, following the departure of the Haven SeaSeven jack-up barge from the site. The scheme forms the core of Bridgwater’s long-term tidal flood defence on the River Parrett, designed to protect low-lying urban and industrial areas from storm surges. The new contract phase signals a shift from marine plant-intensive works towards onshore civil, structural and mechanical flood control installations.

Cullross has lodged plans with City of Edinburgh Council for a 212‑home mixed-tenure scheme at Western Harbour, combining private units with affordable flats and townhouses to be managed by Wheatley Group. The masterplan includes external amenity space, green areas, bike and refuse stores and car parking, and is arranged to mirror Newhaven’s urban grain while prioritising sustainable travel via direct pedestrian and cycle links to nearby bus and tram stops. Cullross reports 116 participants at two public consultations in early 2026, plus separate meetings with Leith Harbour and Newhaven Community Council and the Western Harbour Owners’ Association.

Fischer construction robots are autonomously drilling about 16,000 ceiling fixing holes, each 10mm in diameter and 25mm deep, for heating and cooling panels in a Frankfurt office project built by Strabag and Ed Züblin. Working directly from a digital construction model, the robots position and drill to receive Fischer EA II hammerset anchors, improving positional accuracy for panel fastening into the concrete structure. All drilling data – including time, depth, coordinates and reinforcement strikes – is logged automatically, reducing manual surveying effort and worker exposure to repetitive overhead drilling.

Kier has secured the £101M construction phase of the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier Scheme, advancing Environment Agency and Somerset Council plans to cut tidal flood risk to Bridgwater and nearby communities. The scheme will deliver a new tidal barrier and associated flood defences on the River Parrett, designed to protect thousands of properties from storm surges and high spring tides. For civil and geotechnical teams, key tasks will include deep foundations in soft alluvial soils, complex cofferdam works, and integration with existing embankments and drainage infrastructure.

WSP has been appointed to Transport for London’s Professional Services Framework to provide programme, project and commercial management support across the capital’s multi-modal network, including Underground, Overground, bus and active travel schemes. The framework will be used to resource complex upgrades such as signalling renewals, station capacity works and major asset maintenance on bridges, tunnels and viaducts. For civil and geotechnical teams, this signals continued demand for integrated design–delivery capability, robust cost control and constructability input on constrained brownfield sites.

Gold climbed 1.2% in early New York trading to move back above $4,200/oz as reports of “encouraging progress” in US‑Iran peace talks in Switzerland eased some inflation fears from the Gulf conflict. Bullion is still down about 20% since the end‑February outbreak, when closure of the Strait of Hormuz drove energy prices higher and pushed markets to price an 89% chance of a December US rate hike via the CME FedWatch Tool. Goldman Sachs has cut its year‑end target to $4,900/oz and Bank of America now sees its $6,000/oz call as unlikely until rate hikes are fully priced out.

Blockade of the main access road to Oyu Tolgoi last week marks the latest escalation in a two‑decade saga around Rio Tinto’s flagship copper‑gold project in Mongolia. Disputes since the early 2000s have centred on investment terms for the multi‑billion‑dollar underground block cave, ownership of the 66% Turquoise Hill stake, and state control over one of the world’s largest known copper resources. Continued unrest around site access and logistics poses direct risk to concentrate haulage, supply deliveries and long‑term expansion planning.

China has placed MP Materials and USA Rare Earth on its export control list, blocking Chinese dual-use goods and technologies from reaching the operators of the Mountain Pass mine in California and USA Rare Earth’s emerging domestic magnet and processing projects. The move follows China’s April 2025 curbs on key rare earth elements and magnets and comes just days after the G7 agreed to cap rare earth imports from any single non-bloc supplier at under 60% by 2030. For project developers, the blacklist tightens constraints on Chinese-origin processing equipment, magnet technology and robotics, increasing pressure to qualify non-Chinese suppliers.

New drilling at Alamos Gold’s Island underground mine in northern Ontario has returned high-grade intercepts, including 5.2 metres at 12.05 g/t gold from 968 metres in hole MX26-031 and 5.6 metres at 8.07 g/t from 928 metres in MX26-035W in the Island West Extension Zone. Additional hits include 5.2 metres at 14.51 g/t from 460 metres and 16.1 metres at 3.95 g/t from 23 metres, within a newly defined ~60,000 m² zone up to 500 metres along strike west of current reserves. Backed by a C$43 million 2026 exploration budget and planned Magino mill capacity doubling by 2028, the Island–Magino district is targeted to deliver about 534,000 oz/year from 2028 and underpin Alamos’ 1 Moz/year production goal by 2030.

Gladiator Metals has raised over C$35 million in a BlackRock-led private placement, issuing 7 million flow-through shares at C$3.87 and 3 million non-flow-through shares at C$2.65, lifting its treasury to about C$50 million and its market capitalisation to C$357.9 million. The funding fully covers the 2026–2027 drilling campaign at the Whitehorse Copper project in Yukon, targeting multiple high-grade prospects across a 35 x 5 km belt. Cowley Park, with more than 300 historical holes and 700 m of defined copper-molybdenum strike, will see drill capacity doubled from three to six rigs by late summer.

China’s lithium carbonate futures on the Guangzhou Futures Exchange have fallen nearly 10% over two sessions, dropping a further 2.4% on Monday to about 157,000 yuan/t, as traders bet on a restart of CATL’s Jianxiawo mine in Jiangxi. Authorities have issued a preliminary, limited land-use assessment for the site, which has been offline since its permit expired in August 2025 and is estimated to supply around 3% of global lithium output. Citigroup notes that while a restart could pressure prices, Q3 battery capacity additions should keep the market tight.

Kazakh steel and mining company Qarmet has installed an almost total underground visibility system at its eight former ArcelorMittal coal mines in Karaganda, combining helmet‑mounted cameras with live location tracking of every miner on a central control‑room schematic. Pre‑shift “health booths” at the portal process about 50 workers per hour, checking blood pressure, pulse, eye fatigue and alcohol, with roughly 1% barred from descending, and all footage stored on 1 TB helmet units and uploaded after each shift. The in‑house system, developed by teams of about 30 per mine, is paired with a privately funded medical centre delivering around 200 check‑ups a day, but raises unresolved questions about consent and long‑term use of pervasive surveillance in a company town setting.

TerraLithium, an Occidental subsidiary, and BHE Renewables have produced lithium chloride from geothermal brines at BHE’s Calipatria geothermal plant in California’s Imperial Valley and converted it to battery-grade lithium carbonate. The partners have also directly converted lithium chloride to lithium hydroxide using a commercial-scale electrolyser at TerraLithium’s Brawley R&D facility in the US’s second-largest geothermal field, validating high-purity output against commercial processing standards. BHE Renewables plans to build, own and operate full-scale lithium production facilities in Imperial County once technical and economic feasibility is proven.

British Columbia gold miner MCC Canadian Gold Ventures has filed a multi‑million‑dollar lawsuit against the province after 2024 Orders in Council under section 7 of the Environment and Land Use Act sterilised its Banks Island mineral claims and banned further exploration. The orders were issued as part of the province’s response to Gitxaala Nation’s legal challenge to online mineral claim grants and the BC Supreme Court ruling that the Mineral Tenure Act regime breached the duty to consult. MCGV, which says it invested millions to restart and clean up a bankrupt gold mine on Banks Island, has received no compensation and is citing parallels with the Carrier Lumber v. British Columbia damages case.

Barminco has secured a 45‑month underground mining services contract worth about A$275 million (US$193 million) from Barrick for the Fourmile gold project in Nevada, with mobilisation scheduled to start in July 2026. The project, 100% owned by Barrick and located adjacent to the high‑grade Goldrush deposit on the Cortez trend, will focus on developing new underground access and ore drives to advance resource definition and early extraction. The deal extends Perenti’s North American footprint and signals continued investment in mechanised underground gold mining in the Carlin‑style systems of Nevada.

WSP is expanding an integrated mining capability in West Africa as regulators and investors tighten requirements on responsible mining, local content and long-term asset performance, with Ghana remaining a core hub due to its mature gold sector and established technical skills base. The consultancy is positioning to bundle mine planning, tailings and water management, environmental and social impact assessment, and resilient power and transport infrastructure design into single project teams across the region. For operators, this signals growing demand for early-stage integration of ESG, geotechnical risk, and infrastructure resilience in feasibility and expansion studies.

Portal cutting at Core Lithium’s BP33 deposit has started the underground decline at the Finniss lithium project in Western Australia, establishing the transition from open pit to long-life underground operations. BP33 is planned as a low-cost underground production base with a mine life exceeding 10 years, supporting spodumene concentrate output from the existing Grants open pit and processing plant near Darwin. The move signals a shift to deeper, higher-grade ore extraction, with geotechnical focus now on decline ground support, water management and long-term stope stability.

Sandvik Mining has launched the DD423iE battery-electric twin-boom development drill, pairing the proven DD423i drilling platform with onboard battery power and electric driveline to cut diesel use and exhaust emissions in underground headings. The unit targets the same 4 x 4 m to 5 x 5 m tunnel profiles as the diesel DD423i, but with claimed productivity gains from automated drilling cycles, i-series control architecture and optimised boom geometry. For mine operators, the key implications are reduced ventilation demand, lower heat load and easier integration into existing Sandvik i-series digital and automation ecosystems.

Sandvik has agreed to acquire Italy-based Diemme Filtration, adding high-performance mining filter presses and dewatering systems as a new Filtration division within its Rock Processing business area. Diemme’s portfolio includes large automated filter presses for tailings and concentrate dewatering, targeting dry-stack tailings and reduced process water consumption in large concentrators. The move gives Sandvik an in-house solution for integrating crushing, screening and filtration flowsheets, with potential implications for tailings storage design and water balance in brownfield and greenfield plants.

Anglo Asian Mining has appointed Worley Europe Limited to deliver full feasibility studies for its Xarxar and Garadag copper-gold projects in Azerbaijan, moving both assets towards potential development decisions. Worley, part of Australia-headquartered Worley Group, will apply its global open-pit and processing-plant design capability to define mine layouts, metallurgical flowsheets and infrastructure requirements. The work is expected to firm up capital and operating cost estimates and clarify options for staged development and shared infrastructure across the two deposits.