USA Rare Earth Inc has appointed Fluor Corp and WSP Global Inc as EPCM partners to advance the definitive feasibility study for its Round Top rare earth project in Texas, targeting heavy rare earths and critical magnet materials. The mandate covers process plant, mine infrastructure and associated large-scale infrastructure delivery, drawing on Fluor’s mining and processing design capability and WSP’s experience in complex project execution. For geotechnical and civil teams, early EPCM involvement signals imminent definition of pit design, waste storage, haul roads and water management concepts ahead of permitting and financing.

Exploration activity across Australia this week includes Argent Minerals reporting high-grade silver intercepts at its Kempfield project in New South Wales, with mineralisation extending along strike from existing volcanogenic massive sulphide-style resources. Kalamazoo Resources advanced drilling at its gold targets in the Pilbara and Central Victorian Goldfields, focusing on structurally controlled lodes near historic workings and testing down-dip extensions below old stopes. Adelong Gold continued resource-definition work at the Adelong project in NSW, targeting shear-hosted quartz veins to upgrade JORC classifications and refine pit and underground designs.

American Rare Earths’ Halleck Creek project in Wyoming has secured a Seed Translational Acceleration of Research (STAR) award via the University of Wyoming’s NSF Accelerating Research Translation programme to study byproducts and tailings from rare earth extraction. The work, led by Tyler Brown at UW’s School of Energy Resources, will assess technical viability, processing requirements and end-use applications for these materials and their impact on project economics. Halleck Creek metallurgical tests have already upgraded ore from 0.34% to 3.72% TREO, removing 93.5% of non-rare earth material early so only 6.5% requires further refining.