Geomechanics.io

Ferreyros is deepening its strategic partnership with Minera Chinalco Peru at the Toromocho copper mine, supplying Caterpillar fleets and supporting a new Integrated Operations Management centre focused on mine-wide digitalisation. The collaboration centres on real-time monitoring and data-driven control of truck–shovel fleets and fixed plant, using OEM telemetry and analytics to optimise haulage, loading and maintenance. Ferreyros is pursuing a similar model with Glencore’s Antapaccay operation, signalling continued investment in dealer-led digital support rather than purely in-house mine control systems.

Draslovka a.s has secured a supply contract to provide sodium cyanide (NaCN) to Barrick Mining Corporation’s Nevada Gold Mines, the largest gold mining complex in the United States. The deal centres on maintaining reliable NaCN deliveries for large-scale heap leach and CIL/CIP circuits, where reagent continuity directly affects gold recovery and plant throughput. For process and supply-chain engineers, the agreement signals continued reliance on conventional cyanide leaching chemistry, with operational risk now tied more to logistics and vendor performance than to reagent substitution.

Stantec has been appointed by St Augustine Gold & Copper to lead the definitive feasibility study and engineering for the US$2.37 billion Kingking copper-gold project in Pantukan, Davao de Oro, Mindanao, a major greenfield open-pit development. The mandate covers mine planning, process plant design and infrastructure for what is expected to be one of the Philippines’ largest copper-gold operations, requiring detailed geotechnical, tailings and water management solutions in a high-rainfall, seismically active setting. For contractors and consultants, the DFS will define scope for bulk earthworks, pit slope design and large-scale materials handling systems.

ASGCO has introduced a new Belt Lifter model capable of safely raising wider conveyor belts from 48 to 72 inches (1,200–1,800 mm), targeting large primary and overland mining conveyors. The unit is engineered for heavy-duty conditions, allowing maintenance teams to lift loaded or tensioned belts to access idlers, impact beds and skirt seals without relying on chain blocks or manual jacking. This reduces exposure in confined conveyor bays and standardises belt service procedures on larger, high-capacity haul and process lines.

Taseko Mines’ Florence Copper in-situ recovery project in Arizona has begun ramping up commercial operations, producing its first copper cathodes in late February 2026 using Metso’s solvent extraction and electrowinning (SX-EW) technology. The greenfield operation leaches copper from a deep oxide deposit via injection and recovery wells, sending pregnant leach solution to a Metso SX circuit and EW cells to plate high-purity cathode on stainless steel blanks. For engineers, the project is a live test case for large-scale in-situ leaching in a water-stressed, populated basin with strict groundwater controls.

Charles Darwin University has launched the Centre for Asphalt and Road Technologies (CART) to support Northern Territory road infrastructure, building on a pavement research program started in 2024 with funding from the NT Department of Logistics and Infrastructure. The centre will focus on asphalt and granular pavement performance under the Territory’s extreme temperature cycles and heavy vehicle loads, aiming to optimise mix designs and maintenance strategies for remote highways. Outcomes are likely to influence material specifications, life-cycle costing and rehabilitation planning across NT road projects.

A near-miss incident during haul-truck maintenance has driven Nivek Industries to expand its heavy-duty support range, including the Big TED belly plate handler designed to safely lift and position several hundred kilograms of underbody steel without manual slinging. The system uses hydraulic clamping arms, a low-profile, high-capacity chassis and remote controls to keep fitters clear of suspended loads when removing dump-body pins, belly guards and wheel groups. For mine maintenance planners, these tools reduce reliance on ad hoc cribbing and chain blocks, tightening compliance with site isolation and working-at-height procedures.

Tasmania has moved to secure the long-term future of Grange Resources’ Savage River iron ore operation, tabling a bill to extend the mine’s existing lease beyond its current expiry in 2037. The magnetite mine, which feeds the 2.3 Mtpa pellet plant at Port Latta via a Savage River–Port Latta slurry pipeline, is the state’s largest mine and a major regional employer. Legislative certainty is expected to support ongoing strip mining, tailings management and staged resource development across the Savage River deposits.

Liebherr-Australia has commissioned eight new machines for Northern Star Resources across the Kalgoorlie Super Pit and another Western Australian operation, adding to an existing fleet of five Liebherr units on site. The deployment includes PR 776 mining dozers working on the Super Pit’s ultra-large open-cut benches, where high wall stability, floor control and push efficiency are critical for maintaining ore feed to the Fimiston processing plant. For geotechnical and mine planners, the expanded dozer fleet signals higher capacity for cutback development, dump shaping and haul road maintenance under tight production schedules.

Liontown Resources has doubled revenue in the December half-year as the Kathleen Valley lithium project transitions to fully underground mining, with the first stopes now in steady production. The Western Australian operation is ramping up spodumene concentrate output from its initial nameplate capacity while bedding in underground haulage and ventilation systems designed for high-grade ore zones at depth. Management is guiding to a stronger second half as underground tonnages displace remaining open-pit feed, with unit costs expected to fall as development metres convert to ore.

Ora Banda Mining has expanded gold mineralisation at its Little Gem prospect in Western Australia and identified a new zone near the Round Dam deposit, located about 3.5km from the 1.2Mtpa Davyhurst processing plant. The proximity to existing crushing, grinding and CIL infrastructure at Davyhurst materially improves the potential for near-term trucking and low-capex development of Little Gem ore. For mine planners and geotechs, the emerging satellite orebody offers optionality for short-haul open-pit designs tied into the current Davyhurst production schedule.

The National Audit Office has warned that the Department for Transport still has substantial work to do to deliver Northern Powerhouse Rail, first proposed in 2014 and repeatedly reshaped by successive governments. Reviewing the programme between October 2025 and February 2026, the NAO says DfT has improved clarity but must better align the evolving rail corridor plans with national and local growth strategies across northern England. Effective joint governance between central and local authorities and systematic learning from earlier major rail schemes are flagged as critical to programme success.

Robertson Group has broken ground on a new Hazlehead Academy campus in Aberdeen, the first and largest learning estate project in the five-authority North Schools Programme, being built on existing playing fields while the current school remains operational. Project managed by Hub North Scotland and funded via the Scottish Futures Trust, the contract is tied to outcomes including defined energy efficiency targets, digital connectivity performance, ongoing building condition and embodied carbon limits. Parallel school projects will follow in Shetland, Argyll & Bute and Moray, with Balfour Beatty delivering the Moray scheme.

Talon Metals’ latest drilling at the Tamarack nickel-copper-cobalt project in Minnesota reports hole 25TK0563C with 15.23 metres grading 7.82% Ni, 7.7% Cu, 0.06% Co, 8.77 g/t Pd+Pt and 3.09 g/t Au from about 774 metres depth in the high-grade Vault zone, 16 metres southwest of last year’s 35-metre massive nickel intercept. Step-out holes 25TK0563D and 25TK0569 have intersected 3 metres and ~19 metres of massive or mixed massive sulphides respectively, guided by borehole EM, with assays pending. With mineralisation open in all directions and a feasibility study and environmental assessment due by mid-2026, the results signal significant potential for resource expansion and future underground mine planning.

Rio Tinto and Chinalco have secured unconditional CADE approval for their joint R$4.69 billion ($910 million) acquisition of a controlling stake in vertically integrated aluminium producer Companhia Brasileira de Aluminio (CBA), triggering a tender offer for remaining shares. The stake will be held via a joint venture 67% controlled by a Chinalco subsidiary and 33% by Rio Tinto, adding CBA’s bauxite mines, alumina refineries and smelters to their portfolios. CBA’s 23 hydroelectric generators, additional wind assets and 0.36 Mt of 2024 aluminium output bolster Rio’s existing 3.38 Mt/y hydropowered aluminium platform.

Aluminium prices climbed above $3,400/t on the LME, up 4% in a week, as war-related disruption in the Middle East and an effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz cut off around 9% of global supply and forced major smelters in Qatar and Bahrain to declare force majeure on shipments. Rio Tinto has offered Japanese buyers a Q2 premium of $350/t over the LME cash price, about 40% higher than its previous proposal and the highest Japan has faced since 2015, driven by stronger European and US premiums plus higher freight and insurance. The LME–Shanghai premium is now at its widest since April 2022, potentially pulling more primary metal exports from China, where March shipments are expected to rise by more than 5% year-on-year on demand from AI hardware and solar manufacturing.

Myriad Uranium has doubled the footprint of its Copper Mountain project in Wyoming from 9,439 acres to 18,351 acres after new geophysical surveys identified uranium anomalies in previously untested ground, mainly to the east. By integrating these survey results with historic Bendix Field Engineering data for the US Department of Energy, the company now controls about 62% of the 655 million lb eU₃O₈ “assessment area” and 80% of the 245 million lb eU₃O₈ “control area” to 600 ft depth. Copper Mountain, a former Union Pacific hub-and-spoke, six-pit concept centred on the Canning deposit, is 75% owned by Myriad via an option with Rush Rare Metals.

Nickel prices are set for further gains in 2026 as Macquarie now expects Indonesia’s tighter production quotas to flip the market from a previously forecast 90,000-tonne surplus into deficit, with LME nickel forming a price floor around $17,000–18,000 per tonne. Indonesian ore premiums have already driven about a $3,000 rise in nickel pig iron prices, while NPI output fell an estimated 10% year-on-year in January–February as furnaces shifted to higher-payable nickel matte. Additional constraints include limonite shortages, the Morowali tailings dam accident curbing MHP output, and disrupted sulphur supply from the Middle East delaying new capacity.

Titan Mining has begun shipping graphite concentrate from its 1,200 tpa Kilbourne demonstration plant at the Empire mine in New York, having produced about 1,600 kg for customer qualification, and has launched a fully funded feasibility study for a 40,000 tpa integrated mine-and-processing operation. The Kilbourne deposit carries an open-pit constrained inferred resource of 22 million tonnes at 2.91% Cg (about 653,000 tonnes contained graphite), with 82% of infill and 51% of exploration drilling already completed to upgrade and expand resources. The study will refine final pit design, processing flowsheet, infrastructure and cost estimates, ahead of a targeted construction decision in late 2026 or early 2027, backed by an EXIM Bank letter of interest for up to US$120 million.

Australian crane specialist Marr is deploying the lanyard‑based Buddie System for the first time in the UK on HS2’s Old Oak Common site, supporting heavy lift luffing jib crane operations for the Balfour Beatty VINCI SYSTRA JV. Developed by industry veterans Gary Panagiotidis and Jade Harris, the system allows up to 10 slinger‑signallers to trigger an emergency alert to the crane operator with a simple tug, bypassing issues with hand signals, whistles and radio interference. Marr first used the system on two Sydney projects in 2025 and now sees it as a critical control for loss‑of‑communication incidents.

The Association for Consultancy & Engineering is urging government to create a national digital catalogue of modular design code components – including standard street types, block layouts and frontage rules – backed by automated rule-checking tools. The proposal would enable a “comply-through-code” planning route, where schemes meeting codified standards on parameters such as height limits, daylight access and active frontage ratios could receive streamlined approvals. ACE argues this digital planning infrastructure, linked to the Design and Placemaking Planning Practice Guidance, would let resource‑constrained councils apply design codes faster while maintaining consistent placemaking quality.

Brick and block producer Forterra delivered 2025 revenue of £386.0m, up 12.1% year-on-year, with adjusted profit before tax rising 62.9% to £36.0m despite muted aircrete and aggregate block despatches and an 8% fall in UK domestic brick despatches in January 2026 versus January 2025. Output gains came from both kilns at the Desford brick factory running simultaneously for the first time and near-complete redevelopment of the Wilnecote plant, plus strong demand for Bison precast concrete flooring. Statutory results absorbed £6.7m of restructuring costs from closing the Formpave and Bison Bespoke Precast divisions, while Forterra launched its Omnia extruded brick slip range at Accrington.

Hounslow Council has launched the £7.5bn Golden Mile London regeneration along a 4km stretch of the A4 Great West Road, planning 14,000 homes over 15 years and positioning the corridor, which already hosts 37% of UK broadcast media jobs, for intensified mixed-use development. Early schemes include redevelopment of the former GSK HQ at 980 Great West Road into a neighbourhood with about 2,300 homes and 320,000 sq ft of commercial and community space, plus an A4 improvement package. A Golden Mile Skills and Innovation Hub with the University of West London and Hadley Property Group targets creative, digital and technology sectors, signalling major long-term infrastructure and utilities demand.

The Financial Reporting Council has launched an investigation into two former Vistry accountants over a £165m costing error on nine housing development sites in the south of England in 2023–24. The misstatement is linked to forecasting and financial reporting in Vistry’s South division and is speculated to involve failure to account properly for construction cost inflation within its partnership model, where sale prices are fixed before build. The probe targets only the two unnamed individuals, with Vistry stating they have left the company and that it will cooperate fully.