Mt Carbine Tungsten Project
Tenements: ML4867, ML4919, EPM14871, EPM14872, EPM27394
Background: EQ Resources Limited (formerly Speciality Metals International Limited) aims to be a pre-eminent Australian tungsten producer from the historic Mt Carbine tungsten mine in Far North Queensland. Mt Carbine was discovered at the end of the 19th Century, and was a major tungsten producer in the 1970s and 80s. The deposit is still relatively unexplored and there is considerable exploration potential for new tungsten mineralisation in the Mining Leases and surrounding exploration tenements.
Location: Mt Carbine is located 120km by sealed road, north-west of Cairns in Far North Queensland. The project is on granted Mining Leases with power, water, tailings storage and environmental approvals in place for tungsten production and quarrying.
Mineral Resources Summary (JORC 2012 - from ASX Announcement dated 13 January 2014)
| Resource |
Resource |
Cut-off Grade
(%) |
Tonnes
(Mt) |
WO3
(%) |
WO3
(mtu) |
| Low Grade Stock Pile |
Indicated |
0.00 |
12.0 |
0.07 |
840,000 |
| Main Zone Hard Rock |
Indicated |
0.05 |
18.0 |
0.14 |
2,520,000 |
| Main Zone Hard Rock |
Inferred |
0.05 |
29.3 |
0.12 |
3,516,000 |
Today
The Company, as a result of the acquisition of Mt Carbine Quarries in June 2019, now has 100% ownership of the 2 mining leases and surrounding exploration projects. In a joint venture with global commodities and metals recycling group, CRONIMET, the tungsten processing plant has been refurbished, commissioned and expanded to 300k tpa capacity. The installation of the pilot sensor-based sorting technology has seen a 20+ times upgrade of feedstock grade. In addition, by-product revenue is received from quarry purchase orders to supply road base and aggregates for regional infrastructure development.
Roadmap
Historically, ore sorting was successfully used at Mt Carbine between 1973 and 1986, and there are now major advances in the type and efficiency of ore sorters since they were last used at Mt Carbine. Most recently, the company announced in September 2020 that the XRT Sorting technology installed at site delivered significant tungsten ore upgrade ratio (as high as 28:1). This supports Company’s plans to expand the sorting/retreatment operations targeting a 1 million tonnes per annum waste sorting operation, subject to environmental approvals. In addition, the geological team has reinterpreted historical data with benefit of assay results, and identified high-grade tungsten envelopes at Mt Carbine over a 1.2km strike length. This supports the evaluation of underground development of narrow high-grade mine to extract ‘King-Vein’ style mineralisation.
Under our strategic roadmap, the plan is to maximise return from the Mt Carbine mining leases and surrounding exploration tenements, and be a top 3 tungsten producer (by output) outside China.
