Learn Spanish (Latin America): El director comentó que la maquinaria no reanudaría el proyecto. - The director mentioned that the machinery would not resume the project.

This sentence uses reported speech in the past. If the director's original words were "The machinery will not resume" (no reanudará - future tense), the past-tense reporting verb comentó shifts that future action into the conditional (reanudaría - would not resume) to represent a "future from the perspective of the past."

Can comentar just mean "to mention" or "to say"?

Yes! While comentar literally means "to comment," native speakers frequently use it as a slightly softer, more conversational synonym for decir (to say) or mencionar (to mention). Here, "mentioned" is the most natural English translation.

Why use reanudar for "to resume"? Doesn't the Spanish word resumir mean "to resume"?

This is a classic false friend. In Spanish, resumir actually means "to summarize." When you want to express "to resume" in the sense of starting something again after a pause, you must use reanudar or retomar.

Could I use la máquina instead of la maquinaria here?

You could, but it changes the meaning slightly. La máquina refers to a single, specific machine. La maquinaria is a collective noun meaning "the machinery" or a group of machines, which fits much better in the context of a large-scale project.