Geomechanics.io

Versamet Royalties has agreed a US$360 million cornerstone gold stream on Skeena Resources’ Eskay Creek open-pit redevelopment in British Columbia’s Golden Triangle, securing 3.5% of payable gold for life-of-mine with no caps, step-downs or buyback rights and paying 10% of spot for delivered ounces. Eskay Creek, 49% built and targeting first production in Q2 2027, has 50.1 million tonnes at 2.6 g/t Au and 63 g/t Ag, with a 2023 study projecting 455,000 gold-equivalent oz per year for the first five years. The stream, expected to yield Versamet over 10,000 oz Au annually initially and lift its Canadian exposure to ~50% by 2028, is funded via an expanded credit package including a US$250 million revolver and new US$150 million term facility.

Altius Minerals has acquired a 9.9% stake in TNR Gold for C$4.2 million, buying 23.5 million shares at C$0.1775 each to expand its portfolio of royalty-linked equity positions. The deal gives Altius indirect exposure to TNR’s 0.4% NSR on McEwen’s Los Azules copper project, a 7% NPR on Batidero I and II at the Josemaria copper project (Lundin–BHP JV), and a 1.5% NSR on Ganfeng’s Mariana lithium project in Argentina. TNR also brings a 90% interest in the Shotgun gold project in Alaska, with 705,960 oz inferred resources.

Panama plans to authorise First Quantum to process and export about 38 million tonnes of stockpiled ore at the shuttered Cobre Panama complex, expected to yield roughly 70,000 tonnes of copper and take around 12 months once a three‑month ramp‑up is complete. Commerce and Industries Minister Julio Moltó expects the resolution by Tuesday, enabling shipments that could offset 2026 care‑and‑maintenance costs and add about 700 direct jobs to the current 1,600‑strong workforce. Authorities have already sold 122,000 tonnes of concentrate, generating nearly $30 million in royalties, while a 150 MW power unit has been restarted to support site maintenance and the national grid.

Saudi Arabia is overhauling waste management under Vision 2030, with the National Center for Waste Management (MWAN) targeting 94% diversion of municipal solid waste from landfill and 100% treatment of hazardous and medical waste by 2035. The strategy includes expanding engineered sanitary landfills, waste-to-energy plants and construction and demolition recycling facilities, alongside stricter permitting and data systems for industrial waste streams. For geotechnical practitioners, this signals rising demand for landfill lining systems, leachate control, gas capture infrastructure and brownfield remediation expertise across multiple regions.

OceanaGold’s Didipio gold-copper mine in the Philippines is ramping underground production from 1.7 Mt/y to 2.5 Mt/y with a new Sandvik load and haul fleet now arriving on site. The order comprises two LH621i 21 t-capacity loaders, three TH663i 63 t trucks and one rebuilt TH663 truck, replacing older units to support higher ore hoisting rates. The fleet renewal targets lower unit mining costs, improved fuel and tyre performance, and more consistent cycle times in the deepening underground operation.

Boonray Technology has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with China Railway 21st Bureau Group Co Ltd to deploy electric and autonomous mining trucks and supporting digital systems across the contractor’s large mine construction and contract mining portfolio. The partnership targets integrated fleets combining Boonray’s autonomous haul trucks with its fleet management and remote supervision platforms on China Railway 21st Bureau’s major open-pit projects. For mine owners, this signals wider availability of turnkey autonomous haulage packages embedded directly into EPC and contract mining bids in China.

France’s central bank has liquidated its remaining 129 tonnes of gold held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, selling the “non‑standard” bars between July 2025 and January 2026 and buying replacement bullion in European markets that meets modern international bar specifications. The transaction generated a €13 billion ($15 billion) capital gain, turning a 2024 net loss of €7.7 billion into an €8.1 billion net profit for 2025, while keeping total reserves unchanged at about 2,437 tonnes now stored entirely in the BdF’s La Souterraine vault. The Bank of France still plans to upgrade a further 134 tonnes of older bars to current standards by 2028.

Seequent, the Bentley Subsurface company, is expanding its subsurface modelling and data management tools to help miners better locate, characterise and extract orebodies, building on findings from its 7th Geoprofessionals Data Management Report. The report points to persistent issues with fragmented geoscience datasets, manual workflows and poor interoperability between drilling, geological modelling and mine planning systems. Seequent is responding by tightening integration across its portfolio (including Leapfrog, Central and GeoStudio) so multi-disciplinary teams can work from a single, continuously updated subsurface model.

Global mining majors added $250 billion in value in early 2026, lifting the MINING.COM Top 50 to a combined $2.41 trillion despite the US–Iran war and volatile gold at about $4,700/oz and silver above $70/oz, both off record spikes. BHP briefly exceeded a $200 billion market capitalisation, copper contributed $7.95 billion to its half‑year operating earnings, and six miners – including Agnico Eagle, Zijin Mining, Southern Copper and Newmont – now sit in the $100‑billion club. At the other end, Amman Minerals fell 27% on Indonesian smelter delays and Ivanhoe Mines cut Kamoa‑Kakula 2026 copper guidance to 290,000–330,000 tonnes, dropping it below the $18 billion Top 50 cut‑off.

Canadian processor pH7 Technologies is expanding its Vancouver facility, backed by up to C$4 million from NRC IRAP, to scale its organo-electrochemical platform that recovers platinum, palladium and rhodium from secondary materials without toxic reagents or tailings wastewater. The commercial plant already processes spent catalytic converters, producing 30,000–40,000 oz of platinum-equivalent PGMs per year under a tolling and offtake model involving partners such as Mitsubishi. pH7 is now piloting electrochemically generated oxidants to heap leach chalcopyrite and other sulphide ores without cyanide, targeting on-site mine deployment within 1–2 years across South America, Africa and Australia.

A specially designed immersion vessel for the Fehmarnbelt fixed link has passed final safety checks and received Danish Maritime Authority approval, allowing immersed tunnel construction between Denmark and Germany to proceed after significant delay. The vessel will place the first concrete elements off Lolland this spring, a critical step for the 18km immersed tunnel that will carry both road and rail beneath the Baltic Sea. Marine operations teams can now lock in weather windows, dredging interfaces and immersion sequencing for the initial production elements.

The Institution of Civil Engineers has warned that the UK government’s new Better Connected integrated transport strategy lacks the clear, long-term objectives and investment pathways needed to steer major rail, road and mass transit schemes. ICE argues the document omits essential components such as defined modal priorities, a sequenced project pipeline and stable funding signals that asset owners and contractors require for planning multi‑decade programmes. The critique signals continued uncertainty for large schemes needing early geotechnical investigation, corridor safeguarding and staged capacity upgrades.

A subsea electricity interconnector between the UK and the Netherlands has completed 15 years of continuous operation, as the two countries’ transmission system operators sign a new agreement to develop the proposed LionLink project. The existing high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cable has been a key cross-Channel asset for power flows and grid balancing, informing design, reliability and maintenance strategies for future links. LionLink is expected to use next‑generation HVDC technology and multi‑terminal configurations, with implications for offshore grid integration, seabed cable routing and long-term marine asset durability.

Redevelopment of Peckham Rye Station Square in south London has started, with Bam delivering the long-awaited public realm and station forecourt upgrade for Southwark Council. Works are expected to focus on reconfiguring the station approaches, improving pedestrian circulation and step-free access, and rationalising bus, taxi and cycle movements around the interchange. For geotechnical and civil teams, key issues will include working adjacent to live rail infrastructure, managing utilities in a dense urban streetscape, and sequencing construction to maintain passenger flows.

Government ambitions for Ireland’s coast target up to ~37GW of offshore renewable energy capacity by 2050, implying large-scale deployment of fixed and floating wind farms in the Irish Sea, Celtic Sea and Atlantic. Delivering this capacity will require rapid consenting, grid reinforcement and new 220–400kV subsea interconnectors, alongside major port upgrades for turbine marshalling and heavy-lift installation vessels. For civil and geotechnical engineers, the scale signals sustained demand for seabed investigations, foundation design for deep-water sites, and coastal infrastructure capable of handling XXL monopiles and floating platforms.

Budimex has been selected as preferred contractor for deep foundation works on the passenger terminal of Poland’s planned Centralny Port Komunikacyjny (CPK), part of the £27bn Port Polska hub between Warsaw and Łódź. The package will focus on large-scale piling and ground improvement for the main terminal superstructure, a critical early works phase on the greenfield site’s challenging alluvial and glacial deposits. Geotechnical contractors and designers will be watching for CPK’s chosen pile types, installation methods and monitoring regimes, which are likely to set benchmarks for subsequent airside and rail interfaces.

Finalists for the 2026 NCE Awards have been confirmed, with winners to be announced at a London awards dinner and ceremony in July. Categories typically span major UK infrastructure, including bridges, tunnels, geotechnical works and digital design, with judging focused on buildability, whole-life performance and carbon reduction. Shortlisted teams can now benchmark schemes and methods against peers ahead of the final “big reveal”, influencing specifications, procurement choices and innovation priorities on upcoming projects.

DP World’s London Gateway container terminal has launched procurement for a £36M main works contract to build a high-bay automated storage system dedicated to empty containers. The project will require substantial foundations, pavements and services to support stacked steel racking, automated handling equipment and associated control infrastructure within the existing port layout. Contractors will need to manage construction in a live terminal environment, integrating the new automated facility with current yard operations, utilities and heavy vehicle access routes.

Network Rail is deploying engineers over the Easter weekend for £75.5M of renewals while keeping most of the UK network operational, concentrating disruptive works into the four-day shutdown. The programme typically bundles track renewals, S&C replacement and overhead line upgrades at key junctions and approaches to major stations to maximise access to constrained possessions. Contractors and in-house teams will need tight possession planning, high-output track plant and pre-assembled components to deliver within the limited blockade and avoid knock-on timetable and freight path impacts.

Dellner Bubenzer is supplying a wide range of industrial brakes and couplings for mining hoists, slewing drives and belt conveyors, developed in long-term collaboration with OEMs. The company focuses on both service and emergency braking solutions tailored to heavy-duty mining duty cycles and harsh environments, addressing controlled hoisting, precise slewing and high-tension conveyor stopping. For engineers, the key point is an integrated approach to drivetrain and braking design, rather than bolt-on safety systems, across multiple critical mining applications.

Vale Base Metals plans to deploy coarse particle flotation at the Salobo III copper operation in Brazil, with COO Alfredo Santana flagging the project during VBM Day on 31 March 2026 as a key example of its operational “excellence” drive. Coarse particle flotation typically targets significantly larger grind sizes than conventional cells, cutting energy use in comminution and improving water recovery, which is critical for large-scale copper concentrators. For Salobo, this points to potential debottlenecking of milling circuits and higher overall copper recovery without major new grinding capacity.

Komatsu Germany Mining Division has launched the PC9000-12 hydraulic mining excavator globally, after an initial rollout in Canada, positioning it as the largest and most advanced unit in Komatsu’s surface mining fleet. The machine targets large-scale open-pit operations, pairing with ultra-class haul trucks and leveraging Komatsu’s global dealer network for deployment and support. For mine planners and maintenance teams, the PC9000-12 signals further upscaling of primary loading fleets, with implications for bench geometry, truck fleet sizing, and pit infrastructure design.

Orica is targeting smaller North American mines and quarries with the same digital blasting toolkit used on large sites, including its BlastIQ cloud platform for blast design and performance tracking and on-bench digital loading systems. Area Business Manager Elliott Giles told IM that these operations, aggregated, form a major explosives volume market, and are now adopting electronic detonators and precise blast modelling to cut oversize and improve fragmentation. For geotechs and drill‑and‑blast engineers, the shift means more consistent burden control, tighter vibration management and better data for pit wall stability assessment even on “small” jobs.

Tega Industries’ DynaPrime mill liner system targets large Australian SAG, AG and primary ball mills, where unplanned downtime can cost operators millions in lost production. The design combines customised composite lifter profiles with high-wear rubber or hybrid liners, engineered to suit specific mill diameters and charge trajectories rather than relying on standard liner geometries. For plant metallurgists and maintenance teams, the key promise is longer wear life and faster relines, directly affecting mill availability and throughput on constrained grinding circuits.