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An updated feasibility study for Century Lithium’s Angel Island claystone project in Nevada lifts post-tax NPV (8% discount) by one-third to US$4.01 billion and cuts initial capex about 35% to US$997 million, delivering a 27% IRR at a lithium carbonate price of US$24,000/t. The plan outlines a 40-year mine using hydrochloric acid leaching and chlor-alkali processing, producing 26,500 t/y of battery-grade lithium carbonate from 7,500 t/d ore in stage one, doubling throughput in year five. Co-product NaOH credits of US$5,393/t are expected to drive net operating costs below zero, with reserves of 287.65 Mt at 1,149 ppm Li (1.759 Mt LCE).

British Columbia’s Critical Minerals Office has fast-tracked three projects for early environmental assessment co-ordination: Northisle Copper and Gold’s North Island copper-gold project at Port Hardy, Surge Copper’s Berg copper-molybdenum project in the Tahtsa Ranges, and Defense Metals’ Wicheeda rare earths project near Prince George. North Island and Berg each carry PEAs with about C$2 billion after-tax NPV (7–8% discount), with North Island’s three deposits totalling 6.3 billion lb copper-equivalent and Berg scoped as a 30-year, 191 million lb/year Cu-eq operation. Wicheeda’s pre-feasibility study outlines 25.5 million tonnes at 2.4% TREO, a 15-year mine life producing 31,900 tonnes TREO concentrate annually, and a C$1 billion after-tax NPV.

Gold prices broke above $5,200/oz on Monday, with spot gold up nearly 2% to $5,205.06/oz and silver gaining 3% to over $88/oz, as markets reacted to US trade policy uncertainty and Middle East tensions. President Donald Trump’s plan for a new 15% global tariff following a Supreme Court ruling against his emergency powers has pushed investors towards bullion over sovereign bonds and major currencies. OCBC strategist Vasu Menon expects further price volatility, with any escalation in US–Iran nuclear talks likely to add additional safe-haven demand.

Antidumping duties under the US Tariff Act of 1930 are proposed as a floating “price-gap” mechanism to counter China’s below-cost exports of rare earths and other USGS-designated critical minerals, with duties rising automatically as Chinese export prices fall. Erik Groves, corporate strategy and in-house counsel at Morgan Companies, argues this would extend the logic of the US Department of Defence’s floor-price agreement with MP Materials at Mountain Pass without Washington acting as buyer of last resort. Coordinated antidumping actions by the US, EU, Canada, Australia, Japan and South Korea could establish de facto price floors across multiple Western markets.

Demolition contractor Reddem Ltd has been fined £4,000, with £4,000 costs and a £1,600 victim surcharge, for operating an illegal asbestos waste site at The Old Gas Works Yard in Wooler, Northumberland, without an environmental permit. Environment Agency and HSE inspections in June 2023 found nine skips with asbestos-containing demolition waste stored in open containers, contrary to requirements for double-bagging and sealed, enclosed skips. More than 40 tonnes of asbestos material were subsequently removed to a permitted facility, signalling continued strict enforcement of asbestos handling and waste permitting rules on demolition projects.

Ground has broken on Morgan Sindall Construction’s £21m Broadford Primary School on the Isle of Skye, being delivered for The Highland Council to Passivhaus Classic standard for low operational energy demand. The scheme combines a new primary school, nursery, gym hall, public library and council service point, plus an all‑weather, floodlit sports pitch to maximise community use of the site. Construction is programmed through to summer 2027, giving designers time to refine fabric-first detailing and airtightness strategies needed to achieve Passivhaus performance in a coastal Highland climate.

Walsall-based Chase Plant Hire has expanded its Sunward mini excavator fleet from nine to 39 units in under a year, adding 21 machines supplied by dealer Hamstead Plant. The latest order includes two 8.7‑tonne SWE 90UFs, two 5.3‑tonne SWE 50UFs, six 3.8‑tonne SWE 35UFs, six 1.8‑tonne SWE 18UFs and five 2.6‑tonne SWE 25Fs, with all UF models offering zero tail swing for confined urban and utility work. Chase, traditionally a Kubota user, cites customer demand for the “green machines” and will raise hire rates in April after holding prices flat for 17 years.

GMI Construction Group has started main works on the £30m renovation of Huddersfield’s Grade II* listed George Hotel, converting the long-vacant building into a 108-room Radisson Red with bar, restaurant, gym and conference facilities. The scheme, part of the Huddersfield Blueprint and led by Kirklees Council, retains the existing stone façade onto St Georges Square while adding two new accommodation storeys to the rear in a sympathetic architectural style. Heritage constraints and commercial viability have driven a two-year preconstruction design phase before the 2025 planning approval.

Precast manufacturer Tobermore Concrete Products has been fined £160,000 at Londonderry Crown Court after production team leader Colin Thomas was fatally crushed on 26 April 2023 at the HESS1 block manufacturing line at its Lisnamuck Road plant. Thomas entered a fenced pit area for cleaning when a horizontal latch conveyor restarted, trapping him between the moving conveyor and fixed structure because the line had not been fully isolated and locked out. HSENI found unclear interlock zoning, absence of safety light sensors on HESS1 despite their use on similar lines, and inadequate supervision of cleaning and maintenance practices.

Construction of the Narrow Water Bridge between County Louth and County Down finally began in May 2024, delivering a 280m cable-stayed structure with a 138m main span and 50m navigation clearance across Carlingford Lough. Design changes since the earlier cancelled scheme include a single-pylon layout, revised piling strategy in soft alluvial deposits, and offsite fabrication of the steel/concrete composite deck to cut marine works. The updated methodology reduces in-channel construction time, simplifies temporary works in a strong-tidal estuary, and tightens programme and cost risk for the cross-border project.

Perenti has reported double-digit profit growth and stronger margins for the first half of FY26, driven by higher utilisation of its underground and surface mining fleets across Africa and Australia. The contractor pointed to disciplined project execution on long-term contracts in Ghana and Botswana and improved cost control in its drilling and blasting division as key contributors. For mine owners, the result signals continued capacity from Perenti to take on large-scale load-and-haul, development drilling and production drilling contracts without immediate pricing relief.

Queensland’s latest trade mission to East Asia is targeting new capital for the state’s coal, critical minerals and LNG sectors, with delegations visiting key hubs in Japan, South Korea and China to pitch long‑term offtake and joint‑venture opportunities. State officials are promoting existing rail and port capacity on the Central Queensland Coal Network and Gladstone, alongside new copper, vanadium and rare earths projects in the North West Minerals Province. For miners and project developers, the push signals continued government backing for export‑oriented brownfield expansions and advanced-stage greenfield approvals.

Moxa has launched its UC-3400A and UC-4400A 64-bit Arm-based industrial computers with integrated 5G/LTE and Wi-Fi 6, targeting edge deployments in harsh mining environments. The fanless units support wide operating temperatures, DIN-rail or wall mounting, and multiple serial/Ethernet ports for connecting legacy PLCs, sensors and IP cameras across pits, plants and remote haul roads. For mine operators, the combination of cellular and Wi-Fi backhaul enables more resilient telemetry, condition monitoring and fleet data capture where fibre or fixed networks are sparse.

Queensland has introduced a 10 per cent subsidy on below‑rail access charges for users of the 1000km Mount Isa rail line, aiming to keep bulk mineral freight on rail rather than road. The measure targets copper, lead, zinc and phosphate producers moving concentrate and refined product between Mount Isa, Cloncurry and the Port of Townsville, where rail access costs are a major component of logistics. For mine planners and logistics teams, the subsidy could extend the economic life of lower‑grade orebodies and influence future rail siding and loading infrastructure investments.

Dredge Robotics has appointed former Orica and Thiess executive Roy Andrich as operations director to scale its remotely operated dredging and dewatering services for tailings storage facilities and process ponds. Andrich brings more than 25 years’ experience in blasting, contract mining and large-scale project delivery, including managing multi-million-dollar drill-and-blast and load-and-haul fleets across Australian coal and iron ore operations. The move signals a push to expand deployment of submersible dredging robots in high-risk, soft-ground tailings environments where conventional earthmoving plant cannot safely operate.

Perth’s new METRONET Midland Station has opened east of the former Midland station, forming a key interchange on the Midland Line and replacing ageing rail infrastructure in Western Australia’s north-eastern corridor. The at-grade station integrates new rail platforms with upgraded bus interchange facilities and improved pedestrian links into the town centre, designed to accommodate future service frequency increases. Architectural elements reference Noongar culture and the site’s industrial heritage, signalling stronger requirements for culturally responsive design in major rail projects.

Roads Australia’s Showcasing Safe Movement & Place report shows national road fatalities have risen over the past five years, leaving Australia well off its target to halve deaths by 2030 from 2018–2020 baselines. The data confirms that serious crashes are no longer concentrated on regional highways and freeways but increasingly occur on urban streets, including lower-speed local networks. For road designers and asset managers, this points to a need to reassess urban cross-sections, speed environments and pedestrian–cyclist protection rather than focusing safety upgrades solely on interurban corridors.

BHP convened more than 40 community organisations from the Pilbara and Perth for its inaugural “Impact Together – Community Partner Workshop”, aimed at coordinating social investment linked to its Western Australian iron ore operations. The workshop brought together local governments, Indigenous groups, youth services and training providers to align programmes around employment pathways, mental health support and regional infrastructure. For mining project teams, the initiative signals closer integration of community priorities into approvals, workforce planning and long-term closure strategies in the Pilbara.

Lincom Group is updating long‑running mineral processing centrifuges with maintenance‑centred design features such as improved access to wear liners, simplified scroll and bowl change‑outs, and upgraded vibration monitoring. The company is focusing on reducing unplanned downtime in coal and iron ore dewatering circuits, where high‑G decanter and screen‑bowl units typically run in abrasive, high‑solids slurries. For plant engineers, the changes aim to extend bowl and bearing life, cut crane time during overhauls, and stabilise moisture targets without frequent manual intervention.

Motion is expanding its mining service footprint with upgraded workshops in Mackay, Rutherford and Perth, adding CNC machining, hydraulic hose assembly and on-site conveyor belt splicing to support heavy equipment overhauls. The facilities are being tooled to handle large rotating equipment such as dragline components, longwall conveyor drives and high-capacity gearboxes, reducing turnaround times for shutdown-critical repairs. For mine operators, the shift means more component rebuilds and condition-based maintenance can be completed locally rather than sending assemblies to capital-city or OEM centres.

NOSHOK’s PTI Series intelligent pressure transmitters introduce IO-Link communication to mining pressure monitoring, pairing digital point-to-point connectivity with high-accuracy, rugged transmitters suited to harsh plant environments. The IO-Link interface enables parameterisation, continuous diagnostics and remote reconfiguration from PLCs or distributed control systems, reducing manual intervention on slurry lines, dewatering circuits and hydraulic systems. For brownfield sites, the devices can drop into existing 2‑wire or 3‑wire pressure transmitter locations while adding structured digital data for predictive maintenance and tighter process control.

IDS GeoRadar, part of Hexagon, has launched ArcSAR Neo, a ground-based synthetic aperture radar system providing true 3D resolution for continuous 360° open-pit slope monitoring. The GB-SAR platform is designed to capture high-density deformation data over entire pit walls in a single scan, improving detection of small-scale movements and complex failure mechanisms compared with traditional 2D line-of-sight radars. For geotechnical teams, the system aims to tighten trigger thresholds, refine exclusion zones and support more confident evacuation and re-entry decisions in geotechnically challenging pits.

Anglo American has signed an investment agreement with Mitsubishi Corporation to support development of the Woodsmith polyhalite mine in North Yorkshire, a deep underground operation designed to produce a multi-nutrient natural fertiliser. The deal backs continued construction of the mine’s major underground infrastructure, including its long-distance mineral transport tunnel to Teesside and associated shaft systems. For engineers, the partnership signals capital support for advancing geotechnical works, underground materials handling design and long-lead items for processing and export facilities.

Keltbray has enrolled 25 employees on Multiverse-run upskilling courses focused on artificial intelligence and data tools, targeting staff involved in infrastructure delivery and project controls. Training is expected to cover practical use of analytics platforms and automation for tasks such as programme optimisation, cost forecasting and site data capture. For engineers, this signals growing demand for capability in handling large project datasets and integrating AI-assisted workflows into planning, temporary works design and risk management.