Chief Executive Officer’s Letter Dear Shareholders The 2022-23 Financial Year under review was certainly a year of great change and great achievement at Mt Carbine. It has been my privilege to lead a team of caring and competent mining professionals to rebuild one of the great tungsten mines in the world, outside China. The current year is also starting on a strong note as the Company not only consolidates on progress at our Far North Queensland operations, but takes the skills and lessons learned to a second mine operation in Spain, in conjunction with the team at Saloro. The EQR team has earned many accolades over the past two years, not least of which being the AMEC Environmental Award in 2022. We operate in a unique environment, something our workforce and our contractors pay special regard to in their day-to-day tasks. The Company also operates in and draws its workforce from some very unique communities. From the thriving rural service town of Mareeba to our south, the tourism hub of Port Douglas on the coast to the nearby hamlets of Mt Molloy and Julatten, we are working with local communities to provide jobs and opportunities for Australians young and old. It is the ability to work with local communities, local contractors and local people that will prove so useful as we take the next big step of further developing the Spanish tungsten mine of Barruecopardo, a mine asset which has a lot of common traits with Mt Carbine. EQ Resources has a laser-like focus on safety. The Board and management are extremely proud of the safety record in FY23. Our workforce, which numbers 95 direct employees, and more than 30 contractors in the mining operations, has come with us on this journey of ensuring we have safety as such a priority. I commend the section in this report on safety as something stakeholders can be most proud. The Company has also invested heavily in training with some remarkable achievements in giving young (and not so young) workers the skills to operate heavy machinery and work inside a complex mineral processing plant. One of the great achievements in FY23 has been to honour a Geologist who was instrumental in the resuscitation of Mt Carbine. In naming our open pit after Andy White, the Company pays tribute to the enthusiasm and energy Andy White showed in moving the project forward. EQ Resources made some remarkable progress this year in bringing the Andy White open pit up to a mineable proposition. Mining started just as the year was ending and the first fresh rock went through a processing plant that had previously only treated low-grade stockpiled ore as part of a well-planned and executed commissioning process. At the heart of the process were two high-tech TOMRA XRT ore-sorters, to which we added a third in the later stages of the financial year. TOMRAs 2 & 3 are now at nameplate capacity while our first TOMRA is undergoing upgrade and modification. The past year has once again been a year of strong growth and definitive value addition for the business driving the longterm growth of the Company. 2 EQ Resources Limited Annual Report 2023
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