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Ground Developments Ltd has started bulk earthworks and ground improvement for Metlen Energy & Metals at the Torness HVDC converter station, delivering around 350,000m³ of earthworks and soil modification on a geotechnically constrained coastal site. The company is using a large plant fleet including a new Komatsu PC700 excavator and Wirtgen WR240x stabilisation mixer to execute the ground treatment. The converter station forms part of the Eastern Green Link 1 project, a 196km subsea HVDC link between Torness and Hawthorn Pit rated at 2GW, connecting offshore transmission to the UK onshore grid.

Groundforce, the propping and shoring subsidiary of Vp, has confirmed Warren Buckland as managing director after several months in the role on an interim basis following Paul Donovan’s retirement. Buckland previously led Groundforce Bridge, Groundforce Ireland, Groundforce Training and Stopper Specialists, bringing direct experience in temporary works equipment, modular bridges and pipeline stoppers. He states his priorities as tightening safety and governance across these specialist operations and building a more inclusive, values-driven workplace culture for Groundforce’s site and engineering teams.

PlantWorx, the UK construction plant and equipment demonstration show created by the Construction Equipment Association (CEA) in 2013, has been sold to events organiser Nineteen Group, backed by private equity. The last CEA-run edition was held at Newark in September 2025, with the next show scheduled for Birmingham’s NEC on 22–24 June 2027, maintaining its “real kit, real conditions” live demonstration format. The CEA will retain influence via a stakeholder advisory council and continue its long-standing member discount for exhibitors and visitors.

CITB is cutting several training grants from 8 January 2026 after a 36% rise in demand for services over four years outstripped static levy income, including removal of the short course training grant, ending funding for level 7 qualifications and long-course attendance, and standardising all non-apprentice achievement grants at £600. Employer networks will shift to 50% match funding with a narrower scope, and from 1 April 2026 large employers will move to a single funding offer and lose access to employer networks. Civil engineering and specialist contractors such as MB Roche, Balfour Beatty and Gypsum Limited warn the changes will hit SMEs’ ability to navigate grants and maintain skills pipelines in an already tight labour market.

JCB and Construction Edition have launched a UK and Ireland promotion hiding five “Golden JCB DIGatron” stickers in construction-themed sticker packs, echoing a Willy Wonka-style golden ticket hunt. Winners who find a DIGatron sticker can claim an exclusive JCB prize experience, with the campaign centred on JCB’s signature yellow branding and plant machinery imagery rather than chocolate. The initiative targets plant operators, apprentices and young enthusiasts, using low-cost sticker packs as a physical engagement tool for the construction community.

Metal prices are forecast to keep rising into 2026 as a new Australian Mining report links continued price growth to stabilised global markets and resilient demand for iron ore, copper and battery metals. Analysts point to Rio Tinto’s Pilbara iron ore supply, ongoing Chinese steel production and constrained new project pipelines as key supports for higher benchmark prices. For mine planners and project financiers, the outlook favours bringing shovel‑ready brownfield expansions forward while stress‑testing new developments against stronger-for-longer input and capital costs.

Henkel Australia is using AIMEX to showcase LOCTITE protective coatings, structural adhesives and rapid repair compounds designed to extend service life of high-wear mining assets such as chutes, pumps and conveyors. The polymer-ceramic coatings and epoxy-based rebuild systems target abrasion, impact and chemical attack on steel and concrete, aiming to reduce unplanned shutdowns and rebuild frequency. For maintenance and reliability engineers, the focus is on in-situ application, shorter cure times and compatibility with typical iron ore and coal handling conditions.

Brightstar Resources’ latest reverse circulation drilling at the Sandstone gold project in Western Australia has intersected new mineralised zones that could extend the current JORC mineral resource envelope. Step-out holes along strike and at depth from existing pits indicate continuity of gold-bearing structures beyond previously modelled limits, with multiple intercepts logged in fresh and transitional rock. Any resource growth at Sandstone would directly impact mine planning options for open-pit cutbacks and potential underground access in the Yilgarn greenstone belt.

Ground conditions at Sizewell C have forced the Civil Works Alliance to depart from the Hinkley Point C reference design for the offshore intake and outfall tunnels, driving new solutions for lining, support and construction sequencing. Contractors have had to re-optimise tunnel geometry and TBM drive strategy for the North Sea sediments and local stratigraphy, rather than the harder rock and different stress regime at Hinkley. The changes affect segment design, joint detailing and groundwater control, with direct implications for durability, settlement behaviour and marine interface works.

Major construction on the $700 million Singleton Bypass in New South Wales has reached its one-year milestone, with the new eight‑kilometre alignment designed to divert about 15,000 vehicles per day from Singleton’s CBD. The project will bypass five existing sets of traffic lights on the New England Highway, targeting one of the Hunter Region’s most persistent congestion bottlenecks. For road and civil contractors, the scheme signals sustained demand for pavement, drainage and structures work along a greenfield highway corridor.

Metso has launched its Grande Series of high-performance mining screens, engineered for heavy-duty classification in large-capacity crushing and screening circuits. The range targets high-throughput operations with optimised stroke, speed and deck configurations to increase screening efficiency and uptime compared with conventional units. For plant designers and process engineers, the new series offers a standardised yet scalable platform aimed at simplifying flowsheet design, reducing maintenance intervals and improving overall circuit performance in hard-rock and ore applications.

Rio Tinto’s first Pilbara-made iron ore rail car has rolled off the production line in Karratha, built under a local manufacturing partnership with Gemco Rail. The project aims to replace imported rolling stock for Rio’s 1,700km Pilbara heavy-haul network, which routinely runs 2–3km-long, 30,000+ tonne trains from inland mines to coastal ports. Local fabrication is expected to shorten maintenance and refurbishment lead times for high-axle-load wagons and create a regional supply chain for wear components and structural repairs.

Metso has signed a contract to supply a compact travelling grate iron ore pellet plant to Greta Energy Limited’s Chandrapur project in Maharashtra, India, its second such compact plant order in the country after a similar deal announced in November 2025. The plant will use Metso’s travelling grate induration technology, tailored for smaller-scale pelletising compared with conventional large-capacity units. For Indian iron ore producers, compact plants of this type can be integrated into constrained brownfield sites and support incremental pellet capacity without the footprint of full-scale installations.

Australian Power Equipment is designing mine-wide electrical ecosystems for underground electrification, supplying modular substations, flameproof switchgear and high-voltage distribution tailored to remote, hot and dusty headings. Co-directors Andrew Cockbain and Abby Crawford emphasise integration of variable-speed drives, soft starters and real-time protection relays to manage high inrush currents from battery-electric loaders and jumbo chargers. The approach focuses on IEC-compliant, arc-fault-contained enclosures and condition monitoring to cut unplanned outages and support staged transition from diesel to fully electric fleets.

Total procurement spend with Indigenous-owned businesses has reached $5.83 billion, with mining and resources now the largest single driver of demand for Supply Nation–registered suppliers. The State of the Indigenous Business report points to major contracts in mine site services, civil works and haulage as key growth areas, with Tier 1 miners increasingly using mandated Indigenous participation targets in procurement panels. For engineers and project managers, this signals more joint ventures, Indigenous subcontracting on bulk earthworks and haul road construction, and tighter reporting on Indigenous spend.

A new report on Australia’s battery supply chain positions graphite as a strategic material for lithium‑ion anodes, noting that graphite makes up most of the active material in current EV battery chemistries. The analysis points to Australia’s existing natural graphite resources and emerging synthetic graphite projects as a way to reduce reliance on Chinese processing capacity, which currently dominates anode production. For miners and processors, the report signals growing scrutiny of flake size distribution, impurity control and downstream spherical graphite and coating capacity as key value drivers.

OCP Green Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of OCP Group, has commissioned the first phase of its renewables programme, adding 202 MWp of solar capacity now fully operational across three Moroccan sites linked to its phosphate mining operations. The utility-scale PV plants are designed to feed mine and beneficiation loads, cutting grid dependence and exposure to fuel price volatility. For mine planners and process engineers, the new capacity enables higher electrification of pit equipment, conveyors and slurry pumping, and supports future integration of large-scale storage.

Vale, Caterpillar and dealer Sotreq have agreed to expand the fleet of autonomous haul trucks at Vale’s Northern System iron ore operations in the Carajás region of Pará, Brazil, building on trials already under way with Cat Command for hauling. The deal, flagged earlier by Caterpillar Resource Industries President Denise Johnson at an Investor Day, signals a larger deployment of OEM-autonomy rather than retrofit kits in one of the world’s highest-grade iron ore districts. For mine planners, this points to increased focus on haul road design, traffic management and maintenance regimes optimised for fully autonomous Cat fleets.

Huawei is rapidly expanding mining connectivity projects in South America and Africa, deploying unified networks that integrate 4G/5G, Wi-Fi 6 and industrial optical fibre across entire mine lifecycles. Its “single network, multiple services” architecture is being used to support autonomous haulage fleets, high‑definition pit‑to‑plant video, and real‑time fleet management in remote open pits and underground operations. For engineers, the key shift is moving from fragmented, site‑by‑site comms to a converged backbone designed to carry OT traffic, safety systems and corporate IT on one managed platform.

Prolonged storms in Vietnam have triggered one of the most severe sequences of rainfall-induced hazards in decades, with extensive flooding and more than a dozen landslides reported across Lam Dong province and neighbouring highland areas. Intense, long-duration rainfall on steep, highly weathered slopes has caused rapid slope failures, debris flows and road embankment collapses, cutting key mountain highways and isolating several rural communities. Geotechnical teams now face urgent stabilisation of saturated cut slopes, clearance of landslide debris from narrow carriageways, and reassessment of drainage and slope design criteria for future extreme events.

Anglo American has withdrawn a contentious proposal to guarantee 62.5% vesting of 2024–25 share awards for executive directors tied solely to completion of its proposed $53 billion merger with Teck Resources, after opposition from investors and proxy adviser ISS. The shareholder vote on 9 December will now focus only on authorising new share issuance, with at least two-thirds approval needed from both Anglo and Teck investors. If cleared and subsequently approved by regulators, the combined group would become a top-five copper producer with about 1.35 Mt/year output and a new headquarters in Canada.

BMI, a Fitch Solutions unit, projects most mineral and metal prices will edge higher in 2026 as net‑zero demand, tight supply and an intensifying race for copper, lithium and rare earths outweigh Mainland China’s weak property sector. Industrial policy in the US and EU will focus on domestic mining/processing plus overseas offtake deals, while Beijing accelerates exploration, expands battery and rare earth capacity and uses tariffs and export controls to reinforce value‑chain dominance. Strong M&A, phased brownfield capex and tougher fiscal terms in African frontier markets will shape where mining capital goes next.

Contango Ore has agreed an all-share acquisition of Dolly Varden Silver, valuing the combined Contango Silver & Gold at about $812 million, with $100 million cash, $15 million debt and cash flow from the high‑grade Manh Choh open pit mine in Alaska (30% Contango, 70% Kinross). The deal secures Dolly Varden’s Kitsault Valley project, hosting 3.4 million indicated tonnes at 299.8 g/t Ag (32.9 Moz) plus 1.2 million inferred tonnes at 277 g/t Ag (11.4 Moz), and the Homestake Ridge deposit with 736,000 indicated tonnes at 74.8 g/t Ag and 7.02 g/t Au. Completion, targeted for late February or early March, requires two‑thirds approval from Dolly Varden shareholders and a majority from Contango holders, with a reciprocal $15 million break fee.

Drilling at Omai Gold Mines’ Wenot deposit in Guyana has defined a new high‑grade zone east of the historical pit, with hole 25ODD‑142 cutting 14.7 metres at 11.07 g/t gold from 304 metres, including 4.3 metres at 34.31 g/t, and 25ODD‑145W in Central Wenot returning 13.3 metres at 13.54 g/t from 398 metres. The 35,300 metres of 2025 diamond drilling across 79 holes suggest the central contact and quartz feldspar porphyry may dip south in the east, with implications for pit geometry and strip ratio in the upcoming PEA. Omai, already hosting 2.12 million oz indicated at 2.07 g/t and 4.38 million oz inferred at 1.95 g/t, is targeting resource growth and conversion that could support a “very robust” open pit mine plan.