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Balfour Beatty has appointed solicitor Kay Slade as managing director of its UK Regional Civils business from February 2026, succeeding interim MD Mark Arrandale, who returns to his finance director role. Slade joined the company as managing counsel in April 2022 and became northwest area director two years later, where she reshaped the regional civils portfolio by consolidating its footprint and improving performance. Her promotion signals Balfour Beatty’s intent to pair commercial and legal acumen with operational leadership as it targets a “strong pipeline” of regional infrastructure work.

Strabag UK has acquired the assets of Gunning Transmission & Distribution Services (GTDS) from Ethical Power Group to accelerate its move into regulated high-voltage transmission and commissioning work in the UK and Ireland. GTDS, which will continue operating from its Stafford offices, has grown turnover from £16m in 2022 to £96m in the year to August 2024, bringing an established client base and specialist HV installation capability. The deal gives Strabag in-house expertise for power infrastructure programmes linked to upgrading and modernising the UK electricity network.

A seven-figure equity injection from the Development Bank of Wales’ Wales Business Succession Fund has financed a management buy-out of Cardiff-based DRAC Consulting, securing 20 building services engineering jobs. The deal transfers ownership to 34-year-old managing director Lewis Doherty, a former junior electrical engineer and son of co-founder Carl Bassett, with SME Finance Partners’ Chris Thomas becoming non-executive chair. Founded in 2009, DRAC delivers mechanical, electrical and public health (MEP) design and supervision for local authorities, housing associations, health boards and private developers.

Construction of HS2’s 10-mile (16 km) twin-bore Chiltern tunnel has finished, with five ventilation and access shafts sunk to depths of up to 78 m and 40 cross passages now complete, allowing rail systems installation to begin. Align JV – Bouygues Travaux Publics, Sir Robert McAlpine and Volker Fitzpatrick – drove two 2,000-tonne TBMs from near the M25 at Maple Cross at an average 16 m/day, breaking through near Great Missenden in early 2024. The tunnel, HS2’s longest and second structurally complete twin-bore, now moves into track, overhead line and MEP fit-out despite the wider project’s delays and cost overruns.

Goldman Sachs will acquire not only Mace Group’s consultancy arm but also the Mace brand, meaning Mace Construct will adopt a new name once the transaction completes and Mace Consult becomes an independent organisation in January under CEO Davendra Dabasia. The construction contracting business, which grew from a 1990 boutique consultancy into a major London contractor delivering complex schemes, will co-create its new identity with staff, clients, suppliers and partners through 2026. For now, both units continue trading as Mace Construct and Mace Consult.

Condition monitoring surveys will become compulsory across England’s water networks under a new Defra white paper, with a single regulator empowered to mandate regular “MOT‑style” health checks on pipes, pumps and other critical assets. For the first time in around 20 years a chief engineer will sit within the regulator, tasked with restoring hands-on inspection of buried mains and treatment infrastructure previously overseen by Ofwat. A transition plan due in 2026 and a subsequent water reform bill will define implementation, signalling more preventative maintenance, structured asset condition data and tighter performance scrutiny for operators and contractors.

Early design choices for Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) can lock in long-term performance, with Stuart Crisp, UK manager at Advanced Drainage Systems (ADS), stressing realistic runoff estimates, storage sizing and adoption of proprietary geocellular or plastic pipe systems from the outset. He argues that maintenance access, silt management and ownership responsibilities must be designed in early, rather than retrofitted, to avoid blocked inlets, inaccessible attenuation tanks and non-compliant outfalls. For civil and drainage engineers, the message is to integrate SuDS layout, hydraulic modelling and whole-life maintenance planning at concept stage, not RIBA Stage 4–5.

Rio Tinto has energised a new 25 MW solar plant at its Kennecott copper operations in Utah, adding to a 5 MW solar facility completed in 2023 to expand on-site renewable power. The project showcases a circular critical-minerals supply chain, with tellurium recovered at Kennecott used in manufacturing the solar panels that now supply the mine. For mine planners and process engineers, the build-out signals further integration of site-derived critical minerals into decarbonised power infrastructure for large-scale copper operations.

Digital integration of geotechnical data at Anglo American’s Barro Alto nickel mine in Brazil is using Seequent’s Central and Leapfrog Geo platforms to create a single, live subsurface model for risk management. Drillhole, mapping, monitoring and laboratory data are being federated into a cloud-based environment, enabling near real-time updates to pit slope designs and geotechnical domains. The approach is cutting manual data handling, improving traceability of design decisions and giving geotechnical engineers faster decision cycles for slope stability and mine planning.

Government plans a “once‑in‑a‑generation” overhaul of England’s water sector, proposing a new regulator with an in‑house chief engineer to tighten technical scrutiny of ageing treatment works, trunk mains and sewer networks. The reforms aim for earlier intervention on failing assets, with stronger powers to act before service reservoirs, pumping stations or CSO outfalls reach critical condition. Measures will target reduced pollution incidents and lower household bills, signalling tougher performance requirements for leakage control, storm overflow management and long‑term asset resilience.

Cyberattacks in 2025 costing the UK up to £14.7bn a year are exposing how vulnerable complex, multi-tier infrastructure supply chains are to ransomware, data theft and operational disruption. Civil engineering clients, Tier 1 contractors and specialist subcontractors are increasingly linked through shared BIM environments, cloud-based CDEs and remote monitoring systems, creating multiple entry points via poorly secured SMEs and legacy OT. For project teams, this raises the bar on supplier due diligence, network segmentation and incident response planning across entire asset lifecycles.

Schlam has delivered its 300th Hercules dump truck tray to Fortescue, marking a long-running fleet fit-out across the miner’s Western Australian iron ore operations. The lightweight Hercules bodies are designed to increase payload on ultra-class haul trucks by several tonnes compared with standard OEM trays, using high-strength wear-resistant steel and optimised geometry to reduce carryback. For mine planners and maintenance teams, the scale of deployment signals confidence in life-cycle performance, structural fatigue behaviour and compatibility with Fortescue’s autonomous haulage systems.

GRX Industry Awards will return on 6 May 2026 at the Global Resources Innovation Expo (GRX26) Awards Dinner in Perth, Western Australia, recognising mining and METS companies, technologies and individuals driving sector innovation. Categories will focus on leadership and “groundbreaking technologies”, signalling strong interest in digital mining systems, automation and advanced processing solutions. METS suppliers developing novel sensing, data analytics or equipment platforms for underground and surface operations may see this as a key showcase for commercial deployment and industry validation.

Programmed has secured a contract with Pilbara Minerals (PLS) to provide village management services at the Pilgangoora lithium operation in Western Australia’s Pilbara, billed as the world’s largest independent hard-rock lithium mine. The partnership covers support for daily life in remote workforce villages, including accommodation, catering and facilities management for fly-in fly-out crews. For mine operators, the move signals further outsourcing of non-core site services at large-scale lithium projects to specialist camp and village providers.

Immersive Technologies is deploying simulator-based training programmes to help mines cope with acute supervisor shortages as veteran foremen retire and less-experienced operators are promoted early. Its solutions use high-fidelity equipment simulators and scenario-based modules to build decision-making, crew leadership, and shift management skills for haul truck, shovel, and drill supervisors in a controlled environment. Operators can rehearse responses to production bottlenecks, near-miss incidents, and equipment downtime events, allowing sites to standardise supervisory competence and reduce on-the-job learning risk.

Atlas Copco has expanded its DrillAir range with the X-Air⁺ 800-20 portable compressor, offering higher air flow than the earlier X-Air⁺ 750-25 while maintaining a compact canopy footprint for easier positioning on constrained drill pads. The unit is engineered to deliver full air power at a practical drilling pressure, targeting down-the-hole and rotary blast-hole rigs that need high-volume compressed air without upsizing carriers or compromising manoeuvrability. For mine operators, the design aims to support deeper or larger-diameter holes using existing drill fleets and standard transport logistics.

Regulatory uncertainty around approvals and land access is emerging as a major bottleneck for Australia’s critical minerals sector, prompting the Australian Drilling Industry Association (ADIA) to urge the Federal Government to streamline overlapping state–federal processes. ADIA is pushing for clearer, faster pathways for exploration drilling permits, native title and environmental approvals to support projects targeting lithium, rare earths and other battery metals. For geotechnical and drilling contractors, the message is that mobilisation schedules, rig utilisation and investment in new equipment will hinge increasingly on predictable regulatory timeframes rather than purely geological risk.

High-grade copper and zinc intercepts from recent drilling at 29Metals’ Golden Grove mine in Western Australia are boosting confidence in extending mine life and upgrading resources. Step-out and infill holes around the Gossan Hill and Scuddles lenses have returned multiple thick sulphide zones, including massive and stringer mineralisation with grades reported as well above current reserve averages. The results support further underground development targeting deeper extensions of the volcanic-hosted massive sulphide system, with planning now focused on converting inferred tonnes and optimising sequencing of copper- versus zinc-dominant stopes.

BHP has reported record production from its Australian iron ore and copper operations, driven by higher copper prices and consistently strong output across key assets. The company’s flagship Pilbara iron ore hubs and major copper operations such as Olympic Dam and the Escondida joint venture are running at or near nameplate capacity, supporting lower unit costs and stronger cash flow. For mine planners and geotechs, sustained high throughput signals continued demand for pit expansion, waste dump development and tailings storage optimisation across BHP’s portfolio.

Brightstar Resources is upgrading its legacy Beta mill near Laverton into a 1.5 Mtpa gold processing hub, targeting ore from its Cork Tree Well, Menzies and Laverton projects in Western Australia’s north-eastern Goldfields. The refurbishment includes modern gravity and CIL circuits, new crushing and screening equipment, and structural repairs to the existing plant rather than a greenfield build. For mine planners and process engineers, the hub-and-spoke model reduces haul distances to a central mill and enables staged feed blending from multiple open pits and underground sources.

Antamina has commissioned a Komatsu P&H 4800XPC electric rope shovel at its Peruvian copper-zinc operation, becoming the first mine in the country to run what Komatsu markets as the world’s largest shovel. The 4800XPC, typically paired with ultra-class trucks in the 290–360 t payload range, is designed for high-bench, hard-rock loading and is expected to materially lift unit productivity in Antamina’s main open pit. The move signals further electrification of the mine’s primary loading fleet, with implications for pit power distribution, maintenance planning, and operator training.

BHP has lifted the total investment estimate for Stage 1 of its Jansen potash project in Saskatchewan to US$8.4 billion, including contingencies, after completing a detailed review of cost and schedule. First production has reverted to the original 2026 timetable, reversing earlier expectations of an accelerated start-up. The update signals higher upfront capital intensity for the underground potash mine and associated processing plant, with implications for contractor demand, shaft and hoisting infrastructure, and long-lead materials procurement in the Canadian prairies.

Englobe Corporation has acquired Sudbury-based BESTECH Canada Ltd, a multidisciplinary engineering firm founded in 1995, to expand its mining engineering and environmental services portfolio. The deal adds BESTECH’s underground mine design, electrical and automation engineering, and digital solutions capabilities to Englobe’s existing geotechnical, tailings and environmental remediation work. Englobe positions the acquisition as strengthening support for sustainable resource development and critical minerals projects across Canada and potentially other key mining jurisdictions.

A New South Wales metro train has completed the first full end‑to‑end test of the 66‑kilometre M1 Metro North West & Bankstown Line, running from Tallawong to Bankstown and stopping at all 31 stations. The test run reached 100 km/h on new sections of track, validating signalling, platform interface and timetable assumptions across both the existing North West Metro and the converted Bankstown corridor. Successful completion signals progress towards integrated operations, with implications for track geometry verification, ride quality, and systems integration before passenger service.