Tungsten West Hemerdon Tungsten Mine’ Plans Put on Hold

Plans to reopen the Hemerdon tungsten mine of Tungsten West PLC near Plymouth are on hold due to rising costs and the current market price of tungsten. The Hemerdon mine was taken over by Tungsten West in 2019. In March, the company said it plans to restart operations in early 2023 and employ about 300 people.

However, in a new statement, the company said it is "pausing" development plans to evaluate alternative ways to restart mining. The company said that due in part to the war in Ukraine, many of its costs, including steel, cement, explosives, electricity, and diesel fuel, have experienced "significant and rapid inflation.

At the same time, it added, the price of tungsten has not risen enough to support the viability of mining. The plan would mine tungsten and tin at the site and sell waste granite as aggregates for the construction industry. The mine was previously operated by Australian mining company Wolf Minerals Ltd, but the company applied for management in 2018.

(Source: Felice Frankel/Science)

Western Tungsten says it is suspending development plans for its Hemerdon tungsten mine in England due to significant inflation in key consumables. The London-listed mining company said prices for steel, cement, explosives, electricity, and diesel have risen sharply since it published a feasibility study for the project in March 2021.

Tungsten West says its blueprint for restarting mining, the Bankable Feasibility Study published in March 2021, was developed using "assumptions that are now significantly different from prevailing market conditions" and that if current market conditions remain unchanged in the medium term and tungsten prices do not increase, its strategy will not be viable. As a result, the company's Board of Directors has decided to suspend development in order to "re-optimize the project based on new assumptions”.

At the same time, the company has also delayed the submission of a planning application that would see additional truck journeys through the completed Plympton. The company had intended to submit a variation to its existing planning permission on behalf of its wholly-owned subsidiary Aggregates West Ltd, which starts selling secondary aggregates in January 2021, but the project was put on hold following public reaction to the project during a week-long consultation exercise, including meetings in Sparkwell and Plympton.

The consultation outlined plans to make the temporary permit for 150 heavy trucks per day to and from the mine permanent for two years, then increase by 50 per day to 200 per day by 2024, 250 per day by 2025 and 300 per day by 2026. The company will now analyze the feedback it receives from the public, which means deferring its planning application "until further notice."

Max Denning, CEO of Western Tungsten, said, "Many mining operations, both production, and development, are feeling the impact of unprecedented global economic challenges. However, because our company has only recently begun development, it still has the ability to change its growth strategy to take these factors into account and can build significant project infrastructure and intellectual property within our team."

"We had access to a vast array of tungsten, tin, aggregates, processing equipment, and knowledge on site. These provide all the key elements needed to develop a revised production strategy and successfully return Hemerdon tungsten mine to profitable production. I look forward to updating shareholders on progress in due course."

James McFarlane, managing director of Tungsten West, said plans for trucking will also be revisited, adding, "We would like to thank all those who participated in our consultation for sharing their input, and in light of the feedback we received from local community residents and elected officials representing the constituency, we decided to review our planning application so that we can take their views fully into account."

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