Far North Queensland tungsten producer EQ Resources is ready to double the capacity of the Mount Carbine ore crushing circuit after the delivery of key equipment.

The Mount Carbine project team in charge of the expansion project underway at the mine is finalising infrastructure engineering design to allow the new circuit to process 166,000t per month.

A new process circuit was planned to be commissioned as per an updated bankable feasibility study for the tungsten operation’s expansion, and a Sandvik crushing and screening package was ordered in mid-2022.

Delays in manufacturing and shipping saw EQ Resources come up with an intermediate plan and mobilise additional mobile crushing and screening equipment in the last half of 2023 to cover increased volumes as mining started from the Andy White open pit.

The leadership team and engineering consultants performed a debottlenecking study to assess benefits of a doubling of the throughput compared to the BFS design.

Based on the positive study results, the company decided to order additional equipment from Sandvik which also arrived on site last week.

“We are pleased to finally have the new Sandvik equipment at site,” EQR chief executive officer Kevin MacNeill said.

“We commissioned a series of mobile equipment last year, which have worked well in the last quarter in terms of throughput, but certainly not being optimum and not fully reflecting our BFS design.

“Our engineering teams have worked hard to debottleneck the previous design and with the addition of a large screen into the Sandvik order, we can directly double the throughput compared to what was planned for the initial installation.”

EQ Resources said the 100 per cent capacity increase compared to current production levels of the ore crushing circuit would allow higher production moving forward and compensate for grade variation as experienced throughout the first six months of open pit mining.

Image at top of page: A new vibrating screen and updated engineering design for screen station – part of the package of new equipment being installed at Mount Carbine.