Geomechanics.io

Tablet-based Microlog Analyzer DBX from SKF delivers four-channel, 64 kHz vibration analysis for serious rotating-equipment troubleshooting and route-based data collection in mining plants. The rugged handheld unit combines high-resolution FFT, time waveform and envelope analysis with large onboard memory and app-based workflows for bearings, gearboxes and motors. For reliability engineers, the system enables faster root-cause diagnosis on critical assets such as crushers, conveyors and mills, reducing unplanned downtime and supporting condition-based maintenance strategies.

Volvo Construction Equipment has launched the latest generation ECR355 short swing excavator, designed to deliver higher precision digging and loading in constrained benches and tight quarry faces. The updated 35-tonne-class machine pairs a reduced tail swing radius with refined electro-hydraulic controls and factory-integrated machine control, improving cycle accuracy while limiting rework and bench overbreak. For mine and quarry operators, the compact slew envelope and improved control package enable closer working to highwalls, narrower haul road widths and denser plant layouts without sacrificing production rates.

BHP chief executive Mike Henry has reaffirmed the company’s iron ore advantage, citing world‑leading EBITDA margins and stronger free cash flow from its Western Australia Iron Ore (WAIO) operations compared with Rio Tinto and Vale. He pointed to sustained low unit costs across BHP’s Pilbara hubs and a high proportion of lump and premium fines products as key drivers of realised price and margin resilience through the cycle. For mine planners and process engineers, the message is continued emphasis on low‑strip orebodies, efficient rail‑port integration and product quality control to defend cost and price premia.

Lynas Rare Earths has reported record profits on the back of surging global demand for rare earth oxides used in permanent magnets for EV motors and wind turbines, enabling accelerated expansion of its Mt Weld mine and downstream processing. CEO Amanda Lacaze is pushing ahead with capacity growth at the Western Australian concentrator and the new Kalgoorlie cracking and leaching plant, designed to reduce reliance on offshore processing. For mine planners and process engineers, the move signals sustained demand for high-grade monazite-hosted rare earth ores and long-term justification for beneficiation and hydrometallurgical upgrades.

Glencore has opened applications for its 2027 graduate programme, offering two-year rotations across underground and open-cut operations, processing plants and corporate technical teams at its Australian copper, coal and zinc assets. Graduates in mining, geotechnical, mechanical, electrical and process engineering, plus environmental science and metallurgy, will be placed at sites such as Mount Isa Mines and the Hunter Valley coal operations, with structured mentoring and chartered status support. The intake targets students graduating in 2026, with applications now open via Glencore’s careers portal.

Work on New York’s $16bn Hudson Tunnel Project has restarted after a court order released federal funding, allowing the Gateway Development Commission to re‑activate nearly 1,000 construction and design jobs. The scheme will deliver a new twin‑track rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River and rehabilitate the existing 110‑year‑old North River Tunnel, a key Amtrak and NJ Transit bottleneck. Geotechnical teams will resume riverbed excavation and ground treatment, while structural works will focus on upgrading ageing linings, drainage and power systems without extended shutdowns.

Main construction to restore passenger services on the Portishead–Bristol railway will start in April, as contractors move from enabling works to full track, civils and systems installation on the disused corridor. The scheme, part of MetroWest, involves reinstating roughly 5km of railway between Portishead and Pill, upgrading the existing freight line from Pill to Parson Street Junction, and delivering new stations at Portishead and Pill. Key technical tasks include earthworks on previously infilled cuttings, drainage upgrades, new signalling and telecoms, and structural checks on legacy bridges and retaining walls.

Shropshire Council is set to scrap the Shrewsbury North West Relief Road after an internal report found projected costs had doubled to £162M, rendering the scheme unaffordable. The single-carriageway road, planned to link the A5 at Churncote roundabout to the A528 at Ellesmere Road with a new River Severn crossing, had already secured a significant Department for Transport funding allocation. Cancellation will halt associated geotechnical works on alluvium and floodplain deposits and leave existing junctions on the A5 and A49 carrying forecast growth traffic.

Network Rail and its property arm Platform4 are acquiring long-term control of the Barking Eurohub site in east London from Legal & General in a £15M deal to revive regular rail freight flows through the Channel Tunnel. The site, already connected to HS1 and the wider UK rail network, is intended to handle intermodal trains linking Britain with continental European logistics hubs. For civil and rail engineers, the move signals renewed demand for terminal track layouts, sidings capacity, and loading infrastructure optimised for cross-Channel freight paths.

The first engineering train has reached the Sizewell C nuclear construction site on the Suffolk coast via an upgraded branch line, marking the start of bulk rail logistics for the project. Network Rail and EDF have refurbished the existing Leiston branch, including track renewals and signalling upgrades, to handle heavy engineering trains delivering aggregates and construction materials directly to the site. Rail access is expected to reduce HGV movements on local roads and will influence earthworks phasing, materials stockpiling, and construction sequencing for major civils packages.

Botswana Diamonds will rebrand as Botswana Minerals (ticker BMIN) on 27 February, pivoting into copper after an AI-driven strategic review of its 95,000 km² geological database and 375,000 km of geophysical data flagged opportunities beyond diamonds. The machine-learning model first generated new diamond drilling targets and supported fresh licence applications, then identified 11 copper target areas, from which the company has secured eight exploration licences now under a two-stage drill-target definition programme. Management cites strong third-party interest in the copper ground and a deliberate move to reduce exposure to the current diamond market downturn.

Denison Mines will begin construction in March on the C$419 million Phoenix uranium mine in Saskatchewan’s southeast Athabasca basin, Canada’s first in-situ recovery (ISR) uranium operation, targeting first production by mid-2028. The Wheeler River project’s Phoenix deposit carries proven reserves of 6,300 tonnes at 24.5% U3O8 and probable reserves of 212,700 tonnes at 11.4% U3O8, with a 2023 feasibility study giving a post-tax NPV of C$1.16 billion and 90% IRR over a 10-year life. ISR wellfields will eliminate pits, ore handling, crushing and grinding, reducing surface disturbance and tailings compared with conventional underground plans at the adjacent Gryphon deposit.

Gold climbed as much as 1.3% to above $5,200/oz on Wednesday, easing to around $5,180/oz, as investors reacted to a new 10% US import tariff, the threat of a 15% rate, and rising US‑Iran tensions ahead of nuclear talks in Geneva. Silver gained about 3% to reach $90/oz, with both metals holding above recent technical support levels of $5,000/oz for gold and $80/oz for silver after January’s sharp sell-off. TD Securities, JPMorgan and Bank of America now flag potential gold prices of $4,500–$6,300/oz, with BofA seeing $6,000/oz within 12 months.

Barrick Gold has expanded its executive committee, appointing James J. McGuire as chief legal and policy officer and Woo Lee as chief global affairs officer, both reporting to new CEO Mark Hill. McGuire, a former federal criminal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and ex–managing partner of Greenspoon Marder’s New York office, will oversee legal, compliance, regulatory and public policy functions, while current chief legal officer Poupak Bahamin becomes general counsel and chief compliance officer. Lee, with over 30 years’ experience in Washington, China and East Asia and 11 years at Barrick, will lead global government affairs and sovereign relationships across all markets.

Escalating cartel violence in Mexico, including the late-January abduction and killing of Vizsla Silver workers and nationwide unrest after Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader “El Mencho” was shot dead, is prompting TD Cowen to flag higher security risk for mine operators and investors. Current trouble spots Sinaloa and Jalisco account for only about 1.5% of national mine output, but TD warns that spillover into Zacatecas and Chihuahua, which produce roughly one-third and 12% of Mexican mine output respectively, would be far more material. Combined with higher mining duties since late 2024 and over 1,100 concessions reclaimed, the risk shift is expected to favour companies with larger Tier I exposure in Canada and the US.

Lundin Gold is spending $100 million on 2026 exploration at its Fruta del Norte underground mine in Ecuador, deploying Fleet Space Technologies’ ExoSphere platform to refine drill targeting beneath more than 200 metres of post-mineral volcano-sedimentary cover. ExoSphere integrates metre-scale active seismic imaging with geological and assay data to build layered subsurface models, resolving steep second-order fault structures that control the blind epithermal gold-silver system. The improved structural framework has already generated new high-priority drill targets, supporting plans to sustain 475,000–525,000 oz/y output from 2026–2028 in the remote Condor Mountain jungle terrain.

Greenland Resources has secured a 1,147.76 km² special exploration licence in the Semersooq region around its existing Malmbjerg molybdenum and magnesium exploitation licence, giving it a dominant mineral tenure position on Greenland’s east coast. Historic geochemistry from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland shows multiple sites with highly anomalous molybdenum values in the new area, and the company plans hyperspectral surveys to refine drill targets and potential resource additions. The move comes as global molybdenum demand is forecast to rise from about 398,000 tonnes in 2024 to 500,000 tonnes per year by 2034.

McGoff Construction has appointed former McCarthy Stone divisional construction director Iain Fleming as construction director to oversee all on-site project activity across its Cheshire-based operations. Fleming, who spent 11 years at McCarthy Stone delivering retirement and later-living schemes, will focus over the next 12–24 months on “strong, sustainable growth” and building a more collaborative project environment. Managing director Dean Johnston said Fleming’s experience will support McGoff’s expansion in care and residential sectors, signalling continued pipeline growth in multi-storey accommodation projects.

Early works for the £40bn Sizewell C nuclear power station have reached a key logistics milestone with the first engineering train delivering aggregate via the upgraded Sizewell branch line to the ancillary construction area. Balfour Beatty Rail is renewing 4.5 miles of track with continuously welded rail, upgrading level crossings, installing new signalling and improving sections of the East Suffolk line between Ipswich and Lowestoft to support higher freight use. Rail deliveries will ramp up to as many as four freight trains per day, each removing around 50 HGV journeys and using a new Green Rail Route that bypasses Leiston.

Latimer has awarded Winvic Construction a main works contract worth more than £112m to deliver a 481-home mixed-tenure scheme on a constrained 1.3-acre site off Digbeth High Street in Birmingham, including 9,803 sq ft of commercial space and new public realm. The project will comprise 141 homes for social rent, 147 for shared ownership and 193 for private sale, with around 60% classed as affordable. Demolition of the existing building by PJ Careys is scheduled for March 2026, with main construction due to start in October 2026, subject to pre-start conditions.

Sany UK has appointed Peterborough-based Crowland Cranes as its distributor for Chinese-built Sany mobile cranes across Great Britain, with sales now managed directly by Crowland. Servicing and technical support will be delivered jointly by Sany UK and Crowland, backed by an expanded parts warehouse in Peterborough that will work alongside Sany UK depots in Coatbridge and Sittingbourne to cut crane downtime. Crowland, already a distributor for Manitowoc, Hoeflon, Terex and Ormig, now offers UK contractors a broader multi-brand lifting fleet through a single support network.

Shropshire Council’s Liberal Democrat administration is set to cancel the 6.4 km Shrewsbury North West Relief Road as unaffordable, with projected costs having escalated from £71m in 2019 to £162m–£215m and £32m already spent. WSP has received £24.4m for design and consultancy, Balfour Beatty £5.1m for site investigation and piling management, and Kier £2.9m for later phases, despite construction being paused since June 2025 after the Department for Transport withdrew further funding. The decision excludes the separate A5 Churncote–Holyhead Road Oxon Link Road section, which remains under options assessment and faces continued opposition from Better Shrewsbury Transport.

McLaren Construction has secured the shell-and-core contract for the first 70MW data centre building in Ada Infrastructure’s 210MW Docklands campus at London’s Royal Docks, with completion of this phase due mid‑2028 and first occupancy targeted by year end. The package covers campus-wide infrastructure, foundations and steel frame, with Keltbray and Menard delivering piling, Gallagher handling groundworks and civils, and William Hare providing the structural steelwork. The AI‑ready campus will use air and liquid cooling without water evaporation, low‑carbon materials, and is pre‑engineered for a future district heating interconnection.

HMRC is intensifying enforcement of the VAT domestic reverse charge (DRC) in construction, moving from “light‑touch” to active enquiries, assessments and penalties where reverse charge accounting, CIS classification or invoicing are wrong. The DRC applies where both parties are UK VAT‑ and CIS‑registered, the work falls within CIS “construction operations”, and the customer has not declared end‑user or intermediary status, with mixed‑supply treatment governed by a 5% threshold. Contractors and subcontractors now need watertight written end‑user declarations, DRC‑capable invoicing systems, and cash‑flow planning that reflects loss of the VAT working‑capital buffer.