Geomechanics.io

Copper’s surge above $11,000/t on the LME, including a record $11,540/t print, is unlikely to persist, with Goldman Sachs analysts led by Aurelia Waltham projecting 2025 prices constrained to a $10,000–$11,000/t range and a modest 2026 surplus of about 160,000 t. The bank sees no structural global shortage before at least 2029, noting 2025 demand remains roughly 500,000 t below supply and warning that Chinese consumption could fall nearly 8% year-on-year in Q4. Mercuria’s Kostas Bintas, by contrast, flags “extreme” market dislocations from US-bound flows that could leave non-US markets short of copper cathodes.

Anglo Asian Mining has completed its first copper concentrate sale from the new Demirli mine in Karabakh to Trafigura, delivering 2,055 wet tonnes containing 351 tonnes of copper metal under a contract that includes a $25 million prepayment facility. The shipment, expected to generate $3.6 million in revenue before the Azerbaijani state’s share, was handled via a newly established logistics centre near Ganja on the Azerbaijan–Georgia highway to avoid restricted access into Karabakh. Demirli, commissioned in July, is forecast to produce 4,000 tonnes of copper concentrate in 2025, rising to 15,000 tonnes from 2026.

Australia’s mining veteran Jake Klein warns the country is “relying on luck rather than good strategy”, citing Lynas Rare Earths’ decision to build its main processing plant in Malaysia after a 10-year tax holiday and gas-to-site offer, while Australian governments provided no comparable support. He argues Australia forfeited early leadership in rare earths, with Mt Weld ore still shipped offshore and key processing IP now based in Malaysia, and notes Lynas’ newer cracking plant in Kalgoorlie is hampered by unreliable power. Klein links short three‑year federal election cycles, shrinking university mining programmes and high labour and power costs to declining competitiveness, urging long-term policy, investment in mining education and technology, and aggressive adoption of AI under the new National AI Plan to lift productivity.

Larvotto Resources has installed an ECORE automated drill core scanner at its Hillgrove antimony-gold project in New South Wales, making it the only mine site in Australia with laser ablation–atomic emission spectroscopy core scanning in near real time. The Elemission Inc. system generates quantitative multi-element and mineral maps immediately after drilling, enabling rapid identification of mineralised zones, alteration halos and textural controls to refine geological logging, sampling and metallurgical testwork. Hillgrove is now near production, with first output targeted for Q2 next year and a stated aim to supply up to 7% of global antimony demand.

CERN Council has declared the CHF15bn Future Circular Collider technically feasible, clearing a major hurdle for a 90.7km circumference tunnel with access shafts between 180m and 400m deep across eight surface sites, seven in France and one in Switzerland. The feasibility review drew on around 1,500 experts from 162 institutes in 38 countries, with no technical “showstoppers” identified so far. Recommendations under the European Strategy for Particle Physics will be finalised by May 2026, with a construction decision expected around 2028, signalling a potential decade-scale tunnelling and underground works programme.

Breakthrough of Herrenknecht Single Shield TBMs “Lilia” and “Ida” in Brenner Base Tunnel section H41 Sill Gorge–Pfons marks completion of two 10.25 m diameter, 4,550 kW drives totalling over 16.5 km of twin main tunnels excavated and segmentally lined since mid‑2023. The 2,400‑tonne, 160 m long machines, operated by ARGE H41 (Implenia, Webuild, CSC), bring Herrenknecht’s driven length under the Brenner towards 90 km, with two 10.33 m Double Shield TBMs still advancing on lot H53. Herrenknecht is also supplying segment formwork systems, VMT navigation and ring sequencing, and multi‑kilometre H+E conveyor belts, consolidating a full-process mechanised delivery model.

TAC’s 2025 awards at the Vancouver workshop named the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension Advance Tunnel Contract 1 as Canadian Project of the Year over C$300m and the Annacis Island Wastewater Treatment Plant Outfall Project as Project of the Year under C$300m, recognising major urban transit and deep outfall tunnelling works. The Canadian Innovation Initiative went to dynamic adaptative innovation on the Fairbank Silverthorn Tunnel Project, signalling growing interest in real‑time design and construction optimisation. Individual awards went to Young Tunneller Jonathan D Aubertin, Tunneller of the Year Curtis John Bahten, and Lifetime Achievement recipient Frank Huber.

TBM Mullai has broken through into Kolathur Station North shaft after a 246 m drive from Kolathur Ramp, negotiating just 1.8 m overburden, a -3.8% gradient and ground protection works beneath heavy traffic. Simultaneously, TBM Kurinji has been launched from Kolathur South shaft to excavate a 1,060 m tunnel to Srinivasa Nagar station through Grade 4–5 rock and a 230 m curve, a first in India for a same-station launch and breakthrough. The works form part of Chennai Metro Phase 2 Corridor 5, a 47 km line with 5.8 km underground and 41.2 km elevated, using four TBMs.

Tunnelling for Delhi Metro’s Janakpuri West–RK Ashram Marg extension has completed the downline bore between Pulbangash and Sadar Bazar directly beneath the operational Red Line viaduct, which carries about 700,000 passengers daily. To protect the viaduct’s open foundations and balanced cantilever spans without halting traffic, engineers executed tube a manchette grouting through 180 TAM boreholes and installed dense instrumentation including surface settlement markers, deep inclinometers, pier tilt meters, building settlement points and load cells. Continuous real-time monitoring by dedicated staff kept ground movement, pier behaviour and building responses within permissible limits, and the upline tunnel is now being driven under the same regime.

Terratec’s T83B open TBM on the Mumbai water tunnel project achieved 752m advance in July 2025, claimed as a national record for a water tunnel drive using a single rail track and two mining locomotives. The cutterhead configuration, integrated ground support systems and operational flexibility have matched the alignment’s geology, sustaining high penetration and consistent progress. Productivity gains also stem from tightly planned logistics and cross‑shift co‑ordination, backed by Terratec field service engineers embedded with the contractor’s tunnelling team.

President Marcos has inaugurated Tunnel No. 5 in Bulacan, a new conveyance tunnel feeding the Umiray–Angat–Ipo–La Mesa system that supplies almost 90% of water to nearly 20 million people in Metro Manila, Bulacan, and parts of Cavite and Rizal. The tunnel adds 1.6 billion litres per day of capacity, lifting system throughput from about 6 billion to almost 8 billion litres per day from Angat Dam. Marcos credited concessionaires Maynilad and Manila Water and project teams at the Bigte Basin site in Norzagaray.

Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel has opened twin 9km rail tunnels with five new underground stations, doubling the city’s underground network and cutting cross-city journeys from Arden to Anzac to 12 minutes. Built by the Cross Yarra Partnership (Capella Capital, Lendlease, John Holland, Bouygues and John Laing) after its 2015 announcement, construction required excavation of 1.8 million m³ of rock and soil, 754,000m³ of concrete, 157,000 tonnes of steel and 140km of track. Travel is free on the network at weekends during December and January, with the West Gate road tunnel targeted to open by year-end.

Scottish Water has completed tunnelling works on a £13m scheme in Stirlingshire, installing twin 0.5m-diameter pressurised wastewater pipes over a 4km route between Plean and Cowie to support new housing. A 56m section at 4m depth beneath the M9 motorway was installed by pipe ramming, while an 8m-deep, 46m crossing under the main Glasgow–Stirling railway used rock auger drilling in harder ground. Continuous 24/7 working and a co-ordinated multi-agency approach limited disruption to both the motorway and live railway.

TBM Than Toc (Speedy God), a 6.6m-diameter, 100m-long, 850t Herrenknecht machine operated by Ghella, has broken through at Station S12 (Hanoi Station) after a 4km drive installing 1,720 precast segments on Hanoi Metro Line 3. The 12.5km Pilot Light Line 3, Hanoi’s first underground metro, comprises 8.5km of elevated track, 4km of twin-bore tunnels and four underground stations between Nhon and Hanoi Station, and is now over 72% complete. A second TBM, Tao Bao, is currently advancing towards Station S11, maintaining underground excavation momentum.

The Centenary Motorway crossing of the Brisbane River at Jindalee has been expanded from four to six lanes, with a new three‑lane northbound bridge now open and the existing structures rehabilitated to carry three southbound lanes. The upgrade removes a key bottleneck on this major radial route into Brisbane, materially changing traffic loading patterns and redundancy across the twin structures. For designers and asset managers, the project signals a shift from single to duplicated river crossings, with implications for inspection regimes, maintenance access and future flood resilience strategies.

Former Barratt Developments regional managing director Gary Ennis has been appointed chief executive of Untypical, the new brand combining Hopkins Homes and Tilia Homes owned by Guy Hands’ Terra Firma Capital Partners. Ennis, who ran Barratt’s London and southeast division until September 2024, will be based in Solihull from 8 December, despite no Untypical corporate entity yet being registered at Companies House. The delayed merger of Hopkins and Tilia, first announced in October 2024, remains incomplete, leaving governance and integration timelines unclear for supply chains and project partners.

Gary Bushnell has been appointed managing director of Robertson Capital Projects (RCP) after 10 years as chief executive of Hub East Central Scotland, with Robertson’s pre-construction director Brian Craig moving to replace him at Hub. RCP, based in Stirling alongside Hub East Central Scotland, will use design–build–fund–maintain models and private finance structures to progress social and community infrastructure, regeneration schemes and housing. Bushnell’s remit centres on upgrading public sector estates to meet net zero requirements while enabling projects constrained by tight public budgets to proceed.

A builder who stole nearly £85,000 of construction machinery and used company funds to buy a high‑performance car has been ordered to repay over £190,000 within three months or face jail. The confiscation order, made under proceeds of crime legislation, more than doubles the value of the original thefts to capture wider unlawful gains. Contractors and plant hirers are likely to note the court’s willingness to treat misused company accounts and stolen site equipment as recoverable criminal assets on this scale.

Balfour Beatty is projecting a 20% order book increase to about £22bn for 2025, driven by £3bn of work on the Sizewell C nuclear power station within the main contracting team alongside the Bylor JV of Bouygues and Laing O’Rourke. Power generation orders total £3.5bn this year, while other wins include Rolls-Royce’s sole-contractor fissile construction framework and a £162m contract for the Dunard Centre concert hall in Edinburgh. Revenue is expected to rise only around 5% from £10.0bn, but underlying PFO should exceed 2024’s £252m.

Energy network companies have been cleared by Ofgem to invest £28bn between April 2026 and March 2031 under the RIIO-3 price control, with £17.8bn for maintaining Britain’s gas networks and £10.3bn for strengthening the electricity transmission system across 80 projects. The package includes staged release of funds and clawback mechanisms, with Ofgem imposing an explicit “efficiency challenge” and on-time, on-budget delivery requirements on monopoly operators. Ofgem estimates the net impact on consumer bills at about £30 a year by 2031, framing this as the cost of grid resilience and capacity for new industrial loads.

Funding approval for a £140m upgrade of Cardiff Central railway station will allow Bam Nuttall, as design-and-build contractor, to start construction in 2025 on a significantly enlarged north concourse to increase passenger capacity and improve flow. The scheme is led by Transport for Wales, with capital from the Department for Transport, Cardiff Capital Region and the Welsh government, following sign-off of the full business case by all parties. For civil and rail engineers, the project signals forthcoming packages in station structural works, passenger circulation design and associated M&E integration.

UK construction output fell sharply in November as the S&P Global UK Construction PMI dropped to 39.4 from 44.1 in October, its lowest level since May 2020, with new orders contracting at a rate last seen in early 2009 outside the pandemic. Housing (index 35.4), commercial (43.8) and civil engineering (30.0) all recorded their steepest downturns in five-and-a-half years, while employment declined for an 11th consecutive month and subcontractor usage and buying activity both fell markedly. Softer demand improved supplier performance but input costs for electrical components, copper products and insulation continued to rise, keeping margin pressure high despite more manageable inflation.

Bouygues Travaux Publics Murphy Joint Venture has started tendering for a 16.4 m diameter tunnel boring machine to drive the 4 km twin-bore road tunnel at the centre of the Lower Thames Crossing, set to carry three lanes of traffic in each direction and become the UK’s longest road tunnel. The move comes as project costs have risen from £9bn to £11bn, with £3bn expected from the public purse and the remainder likely under a regulated asset base model still subject to market engagement. TBM procurement is targeted for 2025, with tunnelling to start in 2028 from the northern portal and opening aimed for the early 2030s.

Norwegian contractor LNS and Austrian firms BeMo and Strabag have been appointed to review and evaluate a reference design for a subsea fixed link in Shetland, using the Yell Sound crossing as the initial test case within a new Fixed Link Model. Consulting engineers Cowi and Stantec will use the contractors’ site visits and constructability input to refine cost, programme and construction risk data for a single tunnel taken to scheme design level. Findings will feed into the Inter-island Transport Connectivity Outline Business Case in summer 2026, covering eight island routes and potential funding structures.