美国战争部4.5亿美元入股Elmet并配套20亿美元钨采购，EQ Resources参与内华达APT加工厂但市场已首日重定价

CANBERRA -- Australian tungsten miner EQ Resources will join a U.S. government-backed plan to revive production at a long-shuttered tungsten processing plant in the American desert, as Washington scrambles to rebuild its domestic supply chains in the face of Chinese export curbs on the widely used metal.
Built by General Electric and its then-subsidiary Utah Mining in the late 1970s, the Springer Mine complex in the state of Nevada had operated for less than a year when, in 1982, a wave of supply from China crashed prices and forced its closure.
But with Beijing now squeezing supply, the site is set to reopen as part of a U.S. Department of Defense-funded plan to secure supplies of tungsten, which is used in a wide array of industrial, defense and technology products, including artificial intelligence chips and data centers.
The defense department announced this week that it would buy $450 million worth of shares in critical component manufacturer Elmet Group, which will in turn financially back Canadian-listed Blue Moon Metals, the owner and operator of the Springer Mine. The aim is to restart operations toward the end of next year, in what could be the first domestic mining of the material since 2015.
EQ Resources will join a joint venture with Elmet and Blue Moon to own and operate the site's ammonium paratungstate (APT) processing plant, the companies said on Monday in the U.S. The Australian company will hold a stake of 10%, while Elmet and Blue Moon will hold 70% and 20%, respectively.
APT is an intermediate form of tungsten, and the U.S. has some existing processing plants for the material. Since China introduced export controls in February last year, the price of Rotterdam APT, a benchmark product, has surged from less than $400 per metric ton unit to over $3,000.
EQ Resources, the largest supplier of tungsten outside China, will supply a portion of the tungsten concentrate from its mines in Australia and Spain once the plant starts operating. It will also provide its ore-sorting technology to Blue Moon and other technical assistance.
EQ Resources' share price has rocketed amid the export control-fueled shortages of tungsten.
Blue Moon said it aims to have the APT plant online in the second half of 2028, with the cost of refurbishment and upgrades estimated at about $75 million, although the parties will undertake an engineering and financial review.
EQ Resources CFO Jono Kort told Nikkei Asia that a visit to the site in May produced some promising signs that the facility and equipment, idle since the 1980s, could be returned to working order.
"It sits in dry desert air, so the corrosion is absolutely minimal," he said. "I picked up nuts and bolts that have been on the ground for almost 50 years and I could still twist them with my hands."
Kort, who joined EQ Resources last year, said the company is focused on solidifying its position as a midsize company after growing rapidly from a market capitalization of 80 million Australian dollars ($56 million) last year to AU$2.3 billion currently, with the share price rising as much as 16% on Tuesday.
He said while there is always the possibility that China could increase exports and reduce prices, the bifurcation of the market appeared increasingly entrenched, particularly as the U.S. government has moved to phase out the use of Chinese and Russian material from defense supply chains.
The Department of Defense on Monday also awarded Elmet, a shareholder in EQ Resources, a $2 billion contract to supply tungsten to the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency.
"What goes up must always come down, [but] from my side, I just think coming down to historical levels might never happen, or might take a very long time," Kort said of tungsten prices.