Geomechanics.io

United Utilities has created new woodlands and restored peatlands across more than 2,200 football pitches’ worth of land at its North West water catchment sites, signalling a major landscape-scale intervention in source protection. Large-scale peatland preservation and tree planting in upland catchments can materially reduce peak runoff, improve raw water quality by cutting colour and turbidity, and stabilise slopes, with long-term implications for reservoir yield, treatment costs and geotechnical performance of adjacent infrastructure.

Benz Mining has reported initial metallurgical testwork from the Icon camp at its Glenburgh gold project in Western Australia showing the ore is free milling, with composite samples from the higher-grade core achieving about 95.5 per cent gold extraction within 24 hours. The results suggest conventional cyanide leach flowsheets and standard grinding may be sufficient, reducing the likelihood of requiring refractory processing or complex pre-treatment. For project evaluation, such rapid, high recoveries materially improve potential plant design simplicity, operating costs and cut-off grade assumptions.

Victory Metals has commissioned a rare earths pilot processing plant in Perth to advance flowsheet development for its North Stanmore heavy rare earth project, with the facility officially opened by Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King. The plant will test beneficiation and hydrometallurgical routes on North Stanmore ore to de-risk scale-up to a commercial concentrator and refinery. For process and project engineers, pilot data from this facility will drive decisions on reagent regimes, impurity management and potential downstream separation capacity in Western Australia.

M Resources and its partner Golden Energy and Resources (GEAR) have secured the Tahmoor underground coal operations in New South Wales through a competitive auction, beating rival bids involving former Mastermyne chief executive Tony Caruso, contractor RStar and trader IMR. The deal transfers control of a long-life hard coking coal mine with established longwall infrastructure and rail-linked CHPP, positioning the consortium to leverage existing capacity rather than develop greenfield assets. For contractors and suppliers, the ownership change signals potential retendering of underground services, logistics and capital works packages.

Redpost has launched the RPU-120+ single-channel polyurethane (PU) monitor, a special-purpose electronic temperature recorder covering the same temperature range as the previous RPU-120 but with higher accuracy and longer logging duration. Using the same third-generation sensing and electronics platform as the RPU-352, the unit targets “industry-leading” temperature accuracy for PU injection and curing control in mining and tunnelling applications. The device retains Redpost’s rugged construction, aimed at reliable performance in harsh underground environments where precise thermal profiling governs grout behaviour and quality assurance.

Hillgrove Resources has reported further high-grade copper from underground drilling at the Emily Star lode within the Kanmantoo project in South Australia, supporting plans to restart underground mining beneath the former open pit. ABx Group is progressing product development at its Deep Leads rare earths project in northern Tasmania, advancing towards commercialisation of clay-hosted REE products. Amara Minerals has secured new funding to advance antimony exploration, signalling continued investor appetite for critical mineral prospects across Australian brownfield and greenfield sites.

Ardmore Construction Group and related entities, including Ardmore Major Projects, Ardmore Fitout, Ardmore Regeneration, Landmark Facades and Ardmore Hotels & Commercial, have entered administration and ceased trading, with licensed insolvency practitioners from BTG and Panos Eliades Callender & Co. appointed on 11–12 June 2026. Around 275 staff have been made redundant, with the joint administrators coordinating DWP engagement and Redundancy Payments Service claims. BTG Eddisons and specialist quantity surveyors are inspecting live sites to secure assets, assess health and safety conditions and stabilise project interfaces.

A surge of UK infrastructure schemes moving from planning into delivery is exposing whether contractors and consultants have enough designers, site engineers and supervisors to staff concurrent major works. With multiple nationally significant projects—such as long linear rail and highway upgrades and complex urban tunnelling—entering construction, demand is rising sharply for digital design skills, construction management, temporary works design and specialist trades. Firms may need to re-sequence programmes, expand apprenticeship pipelines and rely more on offsite fabrication to mitigate labour and competency bottlenecks.

Skills shortages and skills gaps in UK engineering and manufacturing are costing an estimated £5.2bn per year, according to new analysis by sector skills charity Enginuity. The shortfall spans core disciplines such as civil, mechanical and electrical engineering, with employers reporting unfilled roles in CAD design, CNC machining, welding, and maintenance of automated production lines. For infrastructure delivery, the findings signal continued pressure on project timelines, higher labour costs in specialist trades, and increased risk around asset maintenance and retrofit programmes.

Installation is starting on roof beams for an HS2 “giant Lego” box structure spanning both carriageways of the M42 near Solihull, creating a portal for the future high-speed rail line. The precast concrete box will be assembled adjacent to live traffic and slid or jacked into final position during motorway possessions, minimising long-term closures on this key West Midlands corridor. For designers and contractors, the scheme illustrates large-scale box construction over an existing dual three-lane motorway under tight possession windows and complex temporary works constraints.

Jacobs has been appointed by Singapore’s national water agency PUB to deliver a feasibility study for a potential new seawater desalination plant to bolster the city-state’s highly engineered water supply system. The study is expected to assess site options on Singapore’s constrained coastline, integration with existing large-scale membrane desalination facilities, and energy demand relative to the national grid and NEWater recycling plants. Outcomes will influence long-term infrastructure planning, including intake/outfall design, brine dispersion, and resilience to sea-level rise and extreme storm events.

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, via Merseytravel, has launched a new electrical engineering framework worth up to £12M to support maintenance, asset renewals and upgrades across its transport network and operational estate. The framework will cover electrical works on rail, bus and ferry assets, including power distribution, fixed wiring, signalling interfaces and station systems. Contractors will need to manage works in live operational environments, with implications for possession planning, temporary supplies, and integration with existing LV/HV infrastructure and control systems.

Norfolk County Council has appointed Costain to complete detailed design and construction of the West Winch Housing Access Road near King’s Lynn, a key link for a major housing allocation on the A10 corridor. The scheme will create a new offline route to divert traffic from the existing A10 through West Winch, reducing congestion and improving journey time reliability into King’s Lynn. For civil and geotechnical teams, the project will involve greenfield alignment design, new junction tie-ins to the A10, and associated drainage and earthworks in low-lying Norfolk ground conditions.

Keller engineers Samuel DeMott and Matt Redfern detail ground improvement and deep foundation works for California High-Speed Rail’s Dutch John Cut and Cole Slough Bridge foundations in the May/June ADSC Foundation Drilling Magazine. The feature focuses on managing challenging Central Valley alluvium and soft delta deposits using techniques such as drilled shafts and ground treatment to control settlement and lateral deformation under high-speed rail loadings. For practitioners, the case study offers design–construction lessons on stiffness matching, construction tolerances and performance verification for rail structures on weak ground.

Terrafame’s multi-metal operation at Kuusilampi in Sotkamo, Finland – which hosts Europe’s largest nickel and cobalt ore reserves – is expanding production of EV battery chemicals using energy‑efficient bioleaching. A productive Hitachi mining fleet is central to the pit’s bulk materials handling and ore movement, supporting consistent feed to the bioleach heaps and downstream battery‑chemical plant. For geotechnical and mine planners, the combination of large‑scale open pit equipment with bioleach pads signals continued long‑life pit development and waste‑rock management demands at this EU “green transition” site.

Resilient chemical reagent supply chains are becoming central to metallurgical performance, BME Metallurgy told miners in a recent webinar, as disruptions in global logistics and feedstock availability expose the vulnerability of flotation collectors, depressants and leaching agents. The Omnia Holdings division stressed dual-sourcing of key performance and process chemicals, regional warehousing and on-site stock buffers to stabilise plant recoveries and reagent addition rates. For concentrators and hydrometallurgical circuits, the message is that procurement strategy now directly affects recovery curves, reagent dosage optimisation and overall plant throughput.

A Maaden delegation from Saudi Arabia’s National Mining Company visited Chinese autonomous haulage specialist CiDi in Changsha on 16 June to inspect its MetaMine Autonomous Haulage System (AHS). The group included senior staff from Maaden’s technology and innovation team and representatives from MMD’s Centre of Excellence, with MMD acting as a provider of CiDi’s MetaMine AHS. The visit signals Maaden’s interest in large-scale autonomous haulage deployment, with potential implications for fleet retrofits, traffic management systems and mine control integration across its Saudi operations.

EACON has moved a fleet of six retrofitted Komatsu HD1500 haul trucks at Norton Gold Fields’ Havana Pit in Western Australia to day-shift autonomous operations, running in active production with no safety drivers on board. The Chinese-developed AHS is layered onto existing mechanical and hydraulic systems of the HD1500s rather than using OEM autonomy, signalling a retrofit route for brownfield fleets. For mine planners and geotechs, this enables tighter control of haul profiles and consistent speed–payload behaviour, potentially affecting ramp design, berm sizing and road maintenance strategies.

Metso has opened a new service centre in Prince George, British Columbia, positioned in a major gold and copper mining hub to support concentrators and comminution circuits across Western Canada. The facility expands local capacity for OEM repairs and rebuilds of crushers, mills and screens, reducing turnaround times and freight distances for remote open-pit and underground sites. Being the only mineral processing equipment OEM with a dedicated service base in the region is likely to influence maintenance strategies, spare parts stocking and lifecycle planning for large grinding and crushing assets.

Battery swapping and charging specialist Shanghai Qiyuan Green Power Technology and EV charging group Shenzhen Kehua Hengsheng Technology have signed a strategic cooperation agreement to jointly develop energy replenishment systems for new energy heavy trucks. The partnership is expected to focus on integrated fast-charging and battery-swapping infrastructure suitable for high-duty-cycle mining haul fleets and other heavy logistics applications. For mine operators, this signals growing vendor collaboration around standardised high-power interfaces and depot-scale charging layouts, which could simplify BEV haul truck deployment and power system planning.

A renewed G7 agreement to coordinate critical minerals supply chains, including aligned stockpiling and joint investment screening, is set to open additional export and project financing avenues for Australian producers of lithium, nickel, rare earths and other battery metals. The pact aims to reduce dependence on dominant suppliers such as China by supporting alternative processing and refining capacity in trusted jurisdictions, with Australia positioned as a key upstream source. For miners, the move signals stronger offtake certainty and potential backing for new concentrators, refineries and midstream facilities.

Trelleborg has launched a new inch-size polyurethane sealing line for light-, medium- and heavy-duty hydraulic cylinders, covering piston, rod and buffer seals plus wipers for linear hydraulic applications. The Zurcon RU9 and Zurcon U-Cup RU9 profiles are engineered to retrofit directly into common American groove sizes in OEM and replacement equipment, targeting mining and other mobile hydraulics. For maintenance and design engineers, the inch-based range simplifies specifying high-performance PU seals without re-machining existing cylinder hardware.

Kristi Noem, current Special Envoy to the Shield of the Americas and former US Secretary of Homeland Security, has joined Vancouver-based NovaRed Mining (CSE: NRED) as strategic advisor, sending the junior’s shares up 2.7% to a market capitalisation of C$73.6 million. NovaRed is using an artificial intelligence‑enhanced platform to acquire and advance early-stage copper exploration assets, including the 160 sq. km Wilmac property and the Lamont Ridge project in British Columbia’s Similkameen division. Surface sampling across these projects has returned average copper grades of 0.64%, with peak values of 1.67%.

Protesters from Mongolia’s Radical Reform Movement have blocked the two-lane haul road used to truck copper concentrate from Rio Tinto’s Oyu Tolgoi mine to the Chinese border, halting exports from a project the company aims to make the world’s fourth-largest copper operation by 2030. The action, marked by a “Stop Rio Tinto” barricade of tyres and tree branches in the Gobi Desert, follows Mongolia’s push to lift its economic take to about 60% and ongoing litigation over roughly $450 million in alleged tax underpayments. Oyu Tolgoi LLC warns the stoppage risks breaching concentrate supply contracts and disrupting Mongolia’s state budget.