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Mineral Resources has broken ground on the Lamb Creek open pit iron ore project in the Pilbara, designed for 7.5 Mtpa and targeting first ore in Q4 FY26, 50 km from its existing Iron Valley operation. The project, underpinned by Pilbara hub resources of 161 Mt at 57.0% Fe and reserves of 51 Mt at 57.5% Fe, is expected to extend the hub’s production profile by more than five years with a lower cost base. Wonmunna will be wound down as all staff transfer to Lamb Creek, with in-house teams building a 16 km haul road, crushing plant and associated infrastructure to feed blended product to Utah Point at Port Hedland.

Liontown Limited has signed a 150,000 wmtpa offtake agreement for 2027–28 spodumene concentrate supply from its Kathleen Valley project in Western Australia with Canmax Technologies, with pricing tied to global spodumene concentrate indices. The deal follows Liontown’s first digitalised spodumene auction on 19 November, which drew more than 50 qualified buyers from nine countries and cleared SC6.0-equivalent product at $1892/dmt (US$1254/dmt). Liontown, which already has offtakes with LG Energy Solution, Tesla and Ford, saw its share price jump nearly 20% over the weekend.

A contractor has died following an underground incident on 5 December at Agnico Eagle’s Fosterville gold mine in Victoria, prompting a joint investigation with local authorities into the cause. The fatality occurred during underground operations, leading to a temporary suspension of mining activities while emergency services responded and the site was made safe. Production is expected to restart today, with Agnico Eagle coordinating with the contractor to provide support to the worker’s family.

Timber imports into the UK reached 7.01m m³ in January–September 2025, 2.1% below 2024, with Q3 volumes only 0.2% down year-on-year as contractors restocked after strong Q2 construction activity. Softwood volumes fell nearly 3% but values rose 9% on a 12% price increase, while imported MDF slumped 25%, offset by gains in hardwood, particleboard, OSB, hardwood and softwood plywood, and engineered wood, including Finnish LVL up about 14% and still 83% of the UK market. Supply shifted away from Sweden, Germany and Ireland towards Latvia and Finland, and NSD forecasts softwood imports down 3% in 2025 before a 3.7% rebound in 2026.

Willmott Dixon has begun construction of Acre Wood Academy in Crowborough, a £15.6m, two-storey steel-frame secondary SEND school providing 60 places for 11–16-year-olds for East Sussex County Council. Procured through the Procurement Hub 2 Framework and due to complete in winter 2026, the project sits adjacent to an existing primary SEND school that must remain fully operational, imposing tight logistical and safety constraints on site access and phasing. The scheme’s design is tailored to complex pupil needs, implying specialised internal layouts, acoustic treatment and controlled circulation that will influence structural and services coordination.

A labourer working for Premier Property & Construction Limited suffered life-changing injuries after being pulled over the edge of scaffolding during an unplanned lifting operation at a Cathcart Hill refurbishment site in London on 15 April 2024, when an untested lifting accessory snagged and then released. Health & Safety Executive investigators found routine lifting was neither planned nor monitored, and untested, unsuitable lifting gear was allowed on the scaffold. Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court fined principal contractor Axis Europe Limited £640,000 and Premier Property & Construction £160,000, plus identical costs and victim surcharges.

McLaren Construction has appointed architect Lucy Craig as design director for its construction management and specialist projects division, bringing 20 years’ design and delivery experience from Mace and Laing O’Rourke, including leading technical design on 40 Leadenhall, Paddington Square and Battersea Power Station Phase 2. Her remit centres on strengthening in-house design governance and multi-disciplinary capability for complex construction management projects, where early-stage technical input and client alignment are critical. The division is currently delivering the new Cardiff Arena and the refurbishment of Birmingham’s Colmore Gate office tower.

Heidelberg Materials UK has awarded Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Worley an EPCM contract to deliver a carbon capture facility at the Padeswood cement works in north Wales, following completion of FEED and a final investment decision with the UK government in September. Using MHI’s Advanced KM CDR Process, the plant is designed to capture about 800,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year from the existing kiln line, with commissioning targeted for 2029. The project will enable industrial-scale production of evoZero carbon captured near-zero cement, directly affecting embodied carbon specifications for UK infrastructure and building projects.

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.