Geomechanics.io

Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram has outlined a £2bn Housing Pipeline of 310 sites for 64,044 homes, including 31,264 units on 71 sites in Liverpool, backed by a recent £700m allocation for new social and affordable housing. The combined authority will vote on 23 January on approving the pipeline, creating a Housing Investment Fund to support 139 financially unviable projects needing around £1bn of subsidy, and establishing a mayoral development corporation initially focused on the North Docks. Joint work with Homes England, including a £1.3m programme across six councils and a new LCR Developer Forum launching on 5 February, aims to unlock stalled brownfield schemes constrained by rising build costs, higher borrowing and tighter regulations.

A £130m planning application has been lodged with Trafford Council for a 2.7‑mile Carrington relief road linking north Partington to the Carrington Spur near Ashton on Mersey, using an existing former petrochemical site road for almost half its length. The Amey-designed scheme under the One Trafford Partnership with Balfour Beatty includes six new signalised junctions, three ponds for habitat and drainage, and segregated walking and cycling space between Partington and Sale. Construction is expected to start in spring 2030 and finish in summer 2032, unlocking 5,000 homes and 350,000 m² of employment space by 2040.

Building products manufacturer Marshalls has confirmed interim chief executive Simon Bourne, formerly chief commercial officer and a board member since 2022, as permanent CEO after a seven‑week internal and external search. Bourne’s first move was a trading update forecasting 2025 turnover up 2% with adjusted profit before tax in line with market expectations, but no underlying market improvement anticipated for 2026. Management is signalling that margin gains will depend on 2025 cost‑cutting and tighter execution of its “Transform & Grow” strategy across concrete, paving and landscaping product lines.

ISSMGE’s International Journal of Geoengineering Case Histories recorded 138,733 paper downloads in 2025, an 18.32% increase on 2024’s 117,260, signalling growing use of detailed case records by practising geotechnical engineers. Open-access case histories on foundations, embankments, ground improvement and slope stability are increasingly being used for benchmarking designs, calibrating numerical models and validating observational methods. The trend points to stronger reliance on documented field performance data, construction records and back-analyses to refine design parameters and risk assessments.

Macmahon Holdings’ subsidiary Decmil has secured a A$120 million Western Hill contract from Rio Tinto for the West Angelas Sustaining Project (WASP) in the Pilbara, Western Australia. The scope covers a new heavy haulage road, light vehicle access roads and associated drainage, forming key surface infrastructure for ongoing iron ore operations. Geotechnical and civil design will need to address Pilbara haul truck axle loads, segregation of LV/HV traffic, and high-intensity cyclone rainfall in road formation, culvert sizing and erosion control.

Golding Contractors has secured a 5.5‑year Mining Services Agreement worth about A$750 million with TEC Coal at Stanwell’s Meandu coal mine in Queensland, starting January 2026 after a six‑month mobilisation. The contract covers overburden removal, coal mining, and associated services at the open‑cut operation that supplies the 1,460 MW Stanwell Power Station. For geotechnical and mine planners, the long tenor and scale signal sustained demand for large truck–shovel fleets, pit sequencing, and dump design in the Surat Basin coal measures.

Dust and carryback at belt conveyor discharge points are framed by Dan Marshall, Process Engineer at Martin Engineering, as problems that must be tackled with an integrated transfer-point design rather than isolated fixes. He points to coordinated use of primary and secondary belt cleaners, properly sized and sealed loading chutes, and correctly tensioned skirting to control spillage and fugitive material. The approach targets reduced liner and idler wear, fewer manual clean-up interventions around transfer points, and lower dust exposure for maintenance crews.

Barrick Gold has chosen Metso’s high‑intensity Concorde Cell™ flotation technology for the Lumwana copper mine expansion in Zambia, to operate in tandem with previously specified TankCell® units. The Concorde Cell is designed for complex, finely disseminated orebodies and ultra‑fine particle recovery, while TankCell units provide conventional rougher and cleaner flotation capacity. The combined flowsheet signals a move towards staged, high‑grade flotation circuits at Lumwana, with implications for reagent regimes, residence time design and potential debottlenecking of downstream dewatering and concentrate handling.

Midana Exploration (Hancock Prospecting) and Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma'aden) have formally received five Round 9 exploration licences in the Nabita Ad-Duwayhi gold belt at the Future Minerals Forum in Riyadh on 14 January 2026, cementing their Saudi joint venture. The licences cover greenfield gold targets in a known mineralised corridor, signalling a pipeline of drilling, resource definition and geometallurgical testwork in the Arabian Shield under Saudi Arabia’s new mining code.

Sandvik Rock Processing is expanding technical support for its crushing and screening solutions across West Africa, covering stationary crushers, screens and feeders as well as mobile crushers and screens. The company is targeting both greenfield and brownfield gold and iron ore operations that rely on high-throughput primary and secondary crushing trains, where uptime and liner wear management are critical. Stronger in-region service and spares availability is likely to reduce lead times for major components and support more aggressive production schedules in remote sites.

Weba Chute Systems is being brought in by OEMs, EPCM contractors and mine operators to fix process flow bottlenecks arising when new or upgraded screens and crushers are integrated into existing circuits. The company applies custom-engineered transfer chutes, designed around site-specific ore characteristics and throughput, to stabilise material flow, reduce impact and spillage, and limit unplanned stoppages. For plant engineers, the trend signals growing recognition that chute geometry and lining design can be the critical constraint on circuit capacity rather than the primary crusher or screen.

Construction is underway on Fortescue’s Nullagine wind project in Western Australia’s Pilbara, a key element of its plan to eliminate fossil diesel from its mining operations and reach net zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030. The project will integrate large-scale wind generation with existing Pilbara Energy Connect infrastructure, which already links multiple iron ore mines via a high-voltage transmission network and gas/solar assets. For mine planners and electrical engineers, the move signals accelerating design requirements for grid‑stabilising renewables, storage, and load management on remote, heavy-industry microgrids.

Wildcat Resources reports that its Bolt Cutter Central lithium project in the Pilbara is significantly larger and more continuous than earlier drilling suggested, with the Harry and Hermione pegmatite zones now interpreted as a single, expanded mineralised system. Step-out drilling has extended spodumene-bearing pegmatites along strike and at depth, improving continuity for potential large-scale open-pit design and simplifying resource modelling. The enlarged footprint strengthens the project’s strategic position in Western Australia’s hard-rock lithium belt and will drive updated JORC resource estimates and mine planning studies.

BME Metallurgy is promoting “green chemistry” in hydrometallurgy by redesigning reagent suites and process flows to cut hazardous residues and improve metal recovery in leach and solvent extraction circuits. The approach integrates mine-to-plant chemistry control, including optimised pH and redox management, reduced cyanide and acid consumption, and tighter speciation control in pregnant leach solutions. For operations, this signals closer collaboration between metallurgists and mine planners on reagent selection, water balance, and tailings chemistry to meet stricter environmental and permitting constraints.

BHP president Australia Geraldine Slattery has been appointed to the Business Council of Australia (BCA) board, adding a major iron ore, metallurgical coal, copper and nickel producer’s operational perspective to national policy debates. Her role at BHP spans large-scale open-pit and underground operations in Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia, including long-life assets such as Pilbara iron ore hubs and Olympic Dam. The appointment signals closer input from bulk commodities and critical minerals operators into discussions on emissions policy, approvals reform and long-term energy and infrastructure planning.

Pilbara Ports handled a record December throughput of 71.2Mt in 2025, driven primarily by iron ore exports through its major Pilbara hubs. The Port of Port Hedland and the Port of Dampier, which together service BHP, Rio Tinto and other iron ore producers, sustained high vessel movements and loading rates despite cyclone-season constraints. The figures signal continued pressure on channel dredging, berthing windows and stockyard management, with planners likely to reassess capacity envelopes and maintenance scheduling for 2026.

Hancock Iron Ore safety advocate Dale Harris argues that “engaging with empathy” is critical to designing effective safety programmes across its Pilbara iron ore operations. Harris links lower incident rates to supervisors spending time in the pit and at fixed plant, listening to operators about specific hazards such as conveyor pinch points and fatigue on 12-hour night shifts. The approach shifts pre-starts and toolbox talks from one-way briefings to two-way discussions, aiming to capture near-miss data and behavioural risks that standard JSAs and procedures often miss.

CRC Etch-10 is a phosphoric acid-based metal etch and cleaner formulated for abrasive mining environments to improve coating adhesion and corrosion resistance on steel substrates. The product is supplied as a ready-to-use liquid, designed to remove light rust, mill scale and surface contaminants prior to application of epoxy or polyurethane protective coatings on fixed plant, mobile equipment and structural steel. For maintenance engineers, it offers a controlled, chemical surface profile where abrasive blasting is impractical or restricted by access, dust or noise constraints.

Hancock Prospecting has secured a successful bid for five mineral exploration licences in Saudi Arabia, partnering with a local company to enter one of the world’s most active greenfield exploration jurisdictions. The licences give Gina Rinehart’s group a platform to test iron ore and other commodity potential in the Arabian Shield, a Precambrian terrane already hosting major gold and base metal deposits. For geologists and mine planners, the move signals growing Australian involvement in Saudi projects where state-backed infrastructure and permitting can accelerate drilling and resource definition.

Rio Tinto is widely expected to table an all‑share bid for Glencore, with RBC’s Ben Davis flagging a likely 27% premium to Glencore’s undisturbed price, valuing it at up to about $87 billion and creating a miner larger than BHP by market capitalisation. The strategic driver is copper: Glencore’s portfolio would lift Rio’s long‑term exposure beyond Oyu Tolgoi and Simandou, anchored by assets such as its 44% stake in Chile’s Collahuasi open pit, amid record copper prices and a thin global project pipeline. RBC’s investor survey sees potential cost synergies of $3.7–$10.4 billion versus roughly $17 billion needed to break even on a 27% premium, with additional execution risk from integrating Glencore’s trading‑led culture and eventually offloading its ring‑fenced Australian coal subsidiary.

The US is negotiating a rare earths partnership with Brazil, targeting Brazil’s largely untapped deposits, which are estimated to be the world’s second-largest and only 30% geologically mapped in detail. Talks involve US and Brazilian officials, Ibram, and financial institutions, building on about $465 million in US-backed financing for Serra Verde, currently Brazil’s only producing rare earth mine, and early-stage plans by Canada’s Aclara Resources. Engineers should watch for new greenfield and brownfield projects as Brasília’s National Mining Policy Council pushes critical minerals while Europe pursues competing offtake and investment deals.

Kinross Gold has approved three US projects—Round Mountain Phase X, Bald Mountain Redbird 2 (Nevada) and the Kettle River–Curlew restart (Washington)—aimed at adding about 3 million oz between 2028 and 2038 and holding group output near 2 million oz per year. Round Mountain will shift to 3,000 t/d bulk underground mining of 11 Mt at 3.2 g/t (1.2 Moz) with initial capex of US$400 million, while Curlew will feed the 1,800 t/d Kettle River mill using dry-stack tailings and US$485 million upfront spend. Bald Mountain’s Redbird 2 pushback and five satellite pits will leverage existing leach infrastructure to deliver roughly 155,000 oz per year to 2031, with a US$490 million build and a SART plant to handle higher-copper ore.

First Quantum Minerals is preparing to process about 38 million tonnes of stockpiled ore at the shuttered Cobre Panama mine, expected to yield roughly 70,000 tonnes of copper and take about one year once permits are issued. The site’s 300 MW power plant is being progressively recommissioned, with one 150 MW unit already at design capacity and a second unit due online this month, currently supplying around 120 MW for preservation works and the national grid. Processing the stockpile will add about 700 jobs to the existing 1,600-strong workforce and provide tailings facility feed while mitigating acid rock drainage risks.

Maaden will invest US$110 billion over the next decade to triple its phosphate and gold output and double aluminium production, centred on eight megaprojects including the US$22.7 billion Wa’ad Al Shamal phosphate complex and its US$7.7 billion Phosphate 3 expansion due in 2027. Current capacity stands at about 500,000 oz. gold and 7 million tonnes per year of phosphate and aluminium, with phosphate output from Wa’ad Al Shamal and Ras Al Khair alone rated at 6 million tonnes per year. The build-out will drive major new pipelines, ports and rail links in Saudi Arabia and deepen processing partnerships with both MP Materials/US DoD and Chinese firms.