Geomechanics.io

Julie White, managing director of diamond drilling and concrete sawing specialist D-Drill & Sawing, has been appointed a trustee of social mobility charity Construction Youth Trust. She will help connect young people from low-income and underrepresented backgrounds with employers across the construction sector, drawing on experience running a subcontractor where around 80% of the workforce began as apprentices. White also sits on the Government’s Construction Skills Mission Board, tasked with delivering a workforce action plan to recruit 100,000 new workers annually until 2029.

Ridge has appointed Steve Williams as head of infrastructure, following its 2025 acquisition of Adept Management and a targeted senior recruitment drive to expand its infrastructure portfolio. Williams previously led major programme advisory work at Turner & Townsend for clients including Thames Tideway, Thames Water, Transport for London, Anglian Water, Heathrow Airport, the Ministry of Defence and Babcock. He will focus on project readiness before planning applications, robust business cases and data-led investment decisions to future‑proof large UK infrastructure schemes.

Ørsted has lost a UK Supreme Court case over whether it could claim tax relief on geotechnical and environmental surveys for offshore wind farms that never progressed to construction. The ruling confirms that expenditure on early-stage site investigation and feasibility work for prospective projects does not qualify as “research and development” for UK tax purposes when no tangible asset is created. Developers may now need to reprice front-end survey campaigns and reconsider how they structure pre-consent ground investigation and design studies.

Transport secretary Heidi Alexander’s ministerial car has been damaged by a UK pothole, prompting the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) to warn that such defects are “a curse for road users” but “not inevitable”. The AIA stressed that systematic, funded programmes of planned resurfacing and structural maintenance are needed, rather than reactive patching, to prevent tyre, wheel and suspension damage and reduce collision risk. For highway engineers, the incident is likely to intensify scrutiny of condition surveys, whole-life asset management and backlog estimates on the local road network.

Publication of the UK government’s Better Connected: a strategy for integrated transport signals a shift towards devolving more powers and funding to city regions and combined authorities to plan rail, bus and active travel networks as a single system. The approach leans on existing models such as Transport for London and Transport for the North, aiming to integrate local rail timetables, bus franchising and multimodal ticketing under regional control. For engineers, this points to more corridor-based, cross‑modal schemes and long‑term pipelines shaped by devolved transport bodies rather than central departments.

Orica has moved into copper processing chemistry by acquiring FMC Corporation’s Danafloat™ range of high-performance flotation collectors, used for copper and other “future facing” commodities. The deal covers proprietary formulations designed to maximise sulphide ore recovery and improve concentrate grade while reducing reagent dosage and environmental impact. For concentrator operators, this adds a major explosives and blasting supplier into the flotation reagent supply chain, potentially enabling tighter integration between upstream fragmentation and downstream recovery optimisation.

A proposed UK ban on cash retentions in construction contracts is raising questions over whether it will genuinely improve cashflow and risk allocation for SMEs in the supply chain. Retentions, typically 3–5% of contract value and often withheld for 12–24 months after practical completion, have become de facto standard despite never being mandated in law. Contractors and consultants are now weighing alternatives such as project bank accounts, performance bonds and retention bonds, and assessing how these could alter pricing, security for defects, and contractual behaviour on infrastructure schemes.

Costain has completed 1,625km of gas main upgrades over five years under its Contract Management Organisation (CMO) agreement with Cadent, covering multiple distribution networks. The programme focused on replacing ageing low- and medium-pressure mains with modern materials to cut leakage and improve network resilience, delivered while maintaining gas supplies to customers. For civil and geotechnical teams, the scale implies sustained urban streetworks, trenching, and reinstatement, with ongoing demand for efficient excavation methods and tight utility coordination.

A parliamentary petition is demanding a full public inquiry into how national and local government managed the 2023 reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) crisis in public buildings. The move follows widespread emergency closures and propping of schools and other structures where Raac roof and floor planks, typically installed from the 1950s to 1990s, were found at risk of sudden shear and bearing failure. An inquiry could scrutinise inspection regimes, structural assessment criteria and decision-making thresholds used to classify Raac elements as critical.

Great British Railways has narrowed its HQ search in Derby to two final locations from an original shortlist of five, confirming the city as the future operational centre for the new rail body. The decision will concentrate several hundred planning, asset management and timetable roles in a single hub, with knock-on demand for upgraded station access, local transport links and digital control infrastructure. For civil and rail engineers, the HQ choice will influence where future programme management, standards development and major enhancement schemes across the national network are coordinated.

McHale Komatsu has secured a supply agreement with Tungsten West to provide construction and mining machinery for the restart of the Hemerdon tungsten and tin mine, located 12km from Plymouth in Devon. The Redditch-based supplier is expected to deliver heavy plant for overburden stripping, ore loading and haulage, supporting Hemerdon’s transition from care-and-maintenance back to full-scale open-pit operations. The deal signals renewed demand for large-capacity earthmoving and materials handling fleets on UK hard-rock sites, with implications for local civils, haul road design and pit slope management.

Cumberland Council has issued a tender notice for its Core Surfacing 2027–2031 highways programme, valued at up to £75M. The framework will cover carriageway and footway resurfacing, surface treatments and associated civils across the council’s network, with works expected to span multiple winter seasons and traffic management phases. Contractors will need robust supply chains for asphalt and bituminous materials and proven capability in planning works around live traffic and constrained urban and rural routes.

Network Rail has signed a power purchase agreement with RWE for 65% of its non-traction electricity demand to be supplied from an offshore wind farm in Wales, covering stations, depots, signalling and other fixed infrastructure. The deal ties a major rail infrastructure operator directly to a single large-scale renewable asset, giving more predictable long-term pricing and grid carbon intensity for operational facilities. For civil and rail engineers, this strengthens the case for further electrification of depots, plant and heating, with load profiles increasingly constrained by intermittent offshore wind supply.

Plans for a 300-home development in Cambridgeshire are advancing under a new agreement between Octopus Energy and Prosperity Group to integrate on-site solar generation with battery storage as the primary power source. The scheme will require estate-wide low-voltage networks, smart inverters and behind-the-metre storage to balance household demand and PV output without relying on conventional gas connections. For civil and building engineers, early coordination of roof orientations, structural loading for panels and plant rooms for battery systems will be critical to layout, services routing and fire strategy.

Bidding has opened for the government’s £1bn Structures Fund, targeting failing road bridges, tunnels and retaining structures that local authorities cannot afford to repair from existing highways budgets. Councils can now submit schemes for major structural interventions such as deck replacements, bearing renewals, strengthening of substandard post-tensioned concrete and remediation of scour-critical foundations. The programme signals central support for high-cost, safety-critical assets where deferred maintenance, weight restrictions and emergency propping are already constraining network capacity.

Kier has secured a “significant” contract to construct the main site entrance for the Sizewell C nuclear power station in Suffolk, forming the primary access point for heavy plant, materials and workforce traffic during the multi‑GW project’s construction phase. The package is expected to include highway tie‑ins to the existing road network, security and control infrastructure, and groundworks capable of handling sustained abnormal loads associated with nuclear-grade concrete, large prefabricated modules and major lifting equipment. For civil and geotechnical teams, early entrance works will influence haul road layouts, temporary works staging and long-term logistics resilience on the constrained coastal site.

Queensland-based mining services provider National Group is sponsoring a community-focused award recognising resources companies that show strong engagement and deliver measurable change across the sector. The award targets operators and contractors working in Queensland’s coal, metals and quarrying projects, with assessment centred on local employment, training programmes and long-term community investment rather than short-term donations. For geotechnical and mining teams, this signals growing scrutiny of how project delivery, contractor selection and site rehabilitation strategies translate into tangible regional benefits.

Smarter filtration solutions in wet mineral processing are focusing on high-pressure tower filter presses for slurry dewatering, such as Thejo’s vertical plate designs that deliver low-moisture filter cakes and high filtrate recovery. Suppliers are pairing these presses with automated cloth washing, cake discharge monitoring and optimised cycle control to stabilise throughput and reduce unplanned downtime. For plant designers, the shift is towards integrating filtration with upstream thickening and downstream dry stacking to cut fresh water intake and tailings storage volumes.

Gold Basin Resources has fired president and interim CEO Charles Straw for cause, alleging “conversion for personal use”, misappropriation of corporate opportunities and undisclosed related-party transactions, after “large sums of money” were wired from the company’s corporate account to a private account he controlled. Straw, an economic geologist appointed in 2021, denies wrongdoing, says he was the victim of a 2024 email-based cyber scam involving under C$50,000, and has reported alleged coercion over Canex Metals’ takeover to the British Columbia regulator. The governance dispute comes as Canex installs a new board, TSXV trading in Gold Basin remains halted for missed filings, and the 42-sq.-km near-surface oxide Gold Basin project in Arizona still lacks a formal resource despite more than 800 drill holes.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has lifted planned copper sales to the US to 500,000 tonnes via a Gécamines–Mercuria joint venture backed by the US International Development Finance Corporation, drawing on minority stakes in Kamoto Copper Company and the high-grade Tenke Fungurume mine. Congo’s copper output reached 3.5 million tonnes in 2025, while a new ARECOMS-run strategic reserve will stockpile cobalt, germanium and other designated minerals, including up to 9,600 tonnes of quota-reserved cobalt in 2026. For miners and traders, this signals tighter state control over export volumes and increased competition with Chinese operators such as CMOC, Zijin and Huayou.

Ottawa’s March 2026 commitment of up to $40 million for the Canadian Digital Core Library is framed as strategic infrastructure, treating archived drill core and geoscience data as a foundation for critical mineral sovereignty across cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel and rare earths. Masoud Aali, founder and CEO of Scient Analytics, argues that simply scanning core is inadequate if preprocessing, interpretation, hosting and workflow integration are outsourced to foreign platforms, which “digitise the rock and export the advantage”. He points to Australia’s two‑decade National Virtual Core Library as a model for a large, open, continuous system that embeds domestic analytical capability.

Rio Tinto has commissioned a C$135 million, 1.1‑kilometre alumina conveyor at its BC Works aluminium smelter in Kitimat, designed for a 50‑year life and capacity of 800,000 tonnes per year. The sealed pipe system is engineered to cut particulate emissions by about 40% by enclosing the alumina stream, reducing transfer points and integrating high‑efficiency dust collectors. Recovered alumina is returned to the process, simplifying maintenance and stabilising raw material feed to the long‑running British Columbia operation.

Blue Moon Metals’ updated feasibility study for the Nussir copper project in northern Norway outlines a 13‑year underground operation producing an average 19,000 tonnes CuEq per year, including 3,600 oz gold and 546,000 oz silver, from measured and indicated resources of 28.72 million tonnes at 1.2% CuEq. The base case gives an after‑tax NPV8 of $235 million, 19% IRR and initial capex of $184 million, with copper accounting for 77% of payable metal. Hot commissioning of the process plant is targeted for Q3 2027, with first production in December 2027 and scope to extend mine life using inferred resources and the separate Ulveryggen deposit.

Uranium Royalty is acquiring Sweetwater Royalties in a US$1.1 billion cash-and-stock deal that values Sweetwater at about US$1.9 billion including debt, creating a new US-based parent listed on Nasdaq and backed by Orion Resource Partners and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan with 43% and 16% stakes respectively. Sweetwater brings about 10.5 billion tonnes of trona and a land package of roughly 3,400 km² of fee surface rights plus over 18,210 km² of mineral rights, making the combined entity the largest landowner in Wyoming. The enlarged royalty platform, holding 2.3 million lb U₃O₈, is positioned to use stable soda ash cash flows to fund further uranium royalty acquisitions amid a primary supply deficit.