Transcription of The Stock Network Interview with EQ Resources (ASX:EQR), Managing Director Craig Bradshaw
Lel Smits: EQ Resources share price is up almost 900% in the last six months. The company is a high-grade tungsten producer operating two of the largest tungsten projects globally outside of China, Mount Carbine in Queensland and Valdicapardo in Spain, and playing a critical role in supplying a diversified Western source of tungsten, a mineral essential for industrial applications, advanced manufacturing and global defence. Ahead of appearing at Sydney Mining Club, I’m joined by Managing Director Craig Bradshaw to discuss how EQ Resources is positioning itself as a key player in the global push to secure critical mineral supply chains amid tightening Chinese export controls and record tungsten prices.
Craig, welcome to the Stock Network.
Craig Bradshaw: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Lel Smits: Now, tungsten is increasingly being recognised as a critical mineral, particularly given its importance in defence and high-performance industrial applications. Can you outline why is tungsten so strategically important, and also how is EQ Resources contributing to Western supply security?
Craig Bradshaw: Excellent question, and it probably takes a lot longer to answer that than the time we’ve got available, so I’ll try and keep it short. Fundamentally, it’s a supply chain squeeze.
China has supplied 85% of global tungsten needs for a long period of time, and so within that, there’s been a structural deficit in the West. In the West, we consume 50% of the world’s tungsten demand. China consumes the other 50%, but China supplied 85%, and then countries like Russia, North Korea, Myanmar, Kazakhstan have supplied another four or five.
So if you like, only 10% of the world’s needs in the rest of the world are actually met by rest of the world’s suppliers, and that results in a structural deficit in the order of around 30,000 to 40,000 tonnes per annum of tungsten that we’re short of in the rest of the world to meet manufacturing demand, be that in transport, logistics, oil and gas mining construction, or defence or technology applications. So tungsten is critical from that perspective, and the role we’re playing at EQR, we’ve got two producing assets. Those assets have been producing in the order of 1,680 tonnes a year.
We’re in the process of increasing that production. We expect to produce in the order of around 3,000 to 3,200 tonnes over the next 12 months, and then further expand our plant through 2027 to be producing closer to 4,000 tonnes per annum. So we’re certainly increasing our production to do what we can to meet the world’s needs, but there’s a significant shortage.
Lel Smits: And if we can talk more about how you are increasing that production, you’ve got a significant resource base across Mountain Carbine in Australia and also Barra Equipado in Spain. How do these assets underpin your growth strategy and really your longer-term production outlook?
Craig Bradshaw: Yeah, well, if I start with the Spanish asset, so that asset has been in operation for some time, but really it’s only since EQR acquired that from late 2024 that we’ve been able to install the additional equipment, change the way some of the process works to get it up the curve from a recovery and a yield perspective. It had its best production month in October 2025.
We have had some weather events through first quarter calendar year 2026, but that asset will continue to ramp up and it’ll run at around that 11,000 to 13,000 MTU per month production. And then our asset in Australia, for probably the last six, seven months, we’ve been doing a big cutback. So we’ve been processing a low-grade stockpile.
We’ve got 13 million tonnes at 0.07, 0.08% tungsten, and I’ve been processing that while doing the cutback in the pit. We got through that cutback, we started feeding higher grade ore from the pit into the processing plant over the last seven to 10 days in March. And so that then, we start processing 0.246% material as opposed to 0.07% material with the wet season in North Queensland and the changes we’ve made to the plant, we’re doubling the throughput of that plant as we speak, going from dry crushing into wet crushing.
And that’ll then get us up to producing in the order of 11,000 to 15,000 MTU per month. And then we’ve also got engineering underway to double the crushing capacity at our processing plant, Mount Carbine. And once the board approves that expansion, we would expect to have that operational within nine to 12 months.
And that will then double the crushing capacity at our Carbine operation and further increase our processing capacity. So they’re the things we’ve got in front of us. The positive is they’re all near term.
So many of the projects that are out there are in early feasibility study stages, so that the production of some of our competitors won’t come on for three to five years, given we’ve got producing assets, we’re getting them up the curve over the next three to six months with the ability to then double production in Carbine within 12.
Lel Smits: So exciting times.
Craig Bradshaw: It certainly is.
Lel Smits: I appreciate the update from EQ Resources all ahead of appearing at Sydney Mining Club.
Craig Bradshaw: Thank you. Look forward to it.
Ends