Wolfram Camp in Far North Queensland presents an underdrilled area with open potential that just needs ‘a new set of eyes’, according to EQ Resources chief geologist Tony Bainbridge.

In a presentation this week, Mr Bainbridge said the company was ‘super excited’ to apply some of the modern techniques that had worked so well at EQ Resources’ Mount Carbine tungsten operation to this new site.

The State Government recently granted the exploration tender for Wolfram Camp and surrounds to the Far North Queensland tungsten producer with the aim of breathing new life into the abandoned tungsten mine.

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Mr Bainbridge said EQ Resources was among about 15 tenderers for the project, which sits in the Herberton tin-tungsten field.

“What the government’s done is allowed us to have an EPM there to search for other extensions of Wolfram Camp for a few years before we take on the responsibilities of the mine,” he said.

Situated 90km west of Cairns, Wolfram Camp is named for wolframite – an important primary ore of tungsten which miners have been extracting from the site since the 19th century.

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Winning the tender has given EQ Resources access to assess a 477sq km area hosting key targets including the mothballed Wolfram Camp mine (abandoned in 2018) and the Bamford Hill advanced exploration target.

“Under the company now we’ve got 800sq km of some of the best tungsten areas in Queensland, so super excited – our team’s growing, so we’ve finally got the people to do some serious work there,” Mr Bainbridge said

Most of the vein-style Wolfram Camp deposit had only been drilled to 100m, he said, and with further prospects in the area, there was potential to develop a larger pit.

The company has flagged plans to drill more than 10,000m in the next three years at the Wolfram Camp and Bamford Hill deposits.

It also plans to collect 4000 soil samples in closely spaced grids and conduct a full 32-element XRF analysis to determine alteration zones and mineral species.

It will also conduct a trial with an XRT Sorter to assess the sortability and potential synergies with existing Mount Carbine processes.