EQ Resources (ASX:EQR) has achieved a new monthly production record of 20,721 metric tonne units of tungsten oxide in concentrate at its Mt Carbine and Barruecopardo operations.
Mt Carbine, which lies in Queensland, Australia, achieved a daily production record of 641 metric tonne units, up from 571 tonnes the previous month.
Barruecopardo, which is in the Salamanca Province of Spain, also achieved a daily production record, outputting 518 metric tonne units per day, compared to 497 metric tonne units the previous month.
EQ Resources, which has a market capitalisation of $111.85 million, says the expanded production in September represents an overall increase of 51%, compared to the average month output recorded in the fourth quarter of last financial year.
CEO Kevin MacNeill says the company is pleased with the results.
“Production continues to ramp up at Mt Carbine since we re-entered the Andy White open pit in June of last year, while our teams at Barruecopardo have been implementing and installing a capital-lite continuous improvement program since EQR assumed ownership of the mine in January,” he says
Tungsten is the heaviest metal to have a known biological role, as reported by the Royal Society of Chemistry. It is mainly used in electrodes, heating elements, and field emitters, as well as filaments in light bulks and cathode ray tubes.
The expanded production coincides with China’s recent update of its export regulations for selected critical minerals — including tungsten — which put additional restrictions on exporting companies.
At the same time, EQ Resources says the US Government enforced an additional tariff of 25% on Chinese tungsten products coming into the US, effective from 27 September 2024.
In May 2024, the US Department of Defense (DoD) issued a final rule implementing Section 844 of the National Defense Authorization Act, which restricts the DoD from acquiring tungsten from China and Russia — which together represents 87% of tungsten’s global supply — and prohibits even earlier inputs in the supply chain from these countries.
Analysts suggest that those regulatory escalations, combined with the current low strategic tungsten stockpile held by the US Defense Logistics Agency, inflate the US structural deficit for tungsten.
MacNeill says the company is proud to be a growing supplier of metal as critical to the global economy as tungsten.
“There is no doubt that end users in Europe and North America are nervous about supply disruption out of China following the recent announcement that China is further tightening export controls for several critical metals, especially those used in defense and semiconductor applications,” he says.
“China controls more than 80% of global tungsten output, and in the past 15 years, the Western world had only brought four tungsten mines into operation — two of them are operated by EQ Resources.”
The company is also actively pursuing cooperation and funding opportunities domestically and through US and Europe agencies.
EQ Resources is a tungsten mining company focused on sustainable mining and processing practices.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: EQ Resources
