Mt Carbine Tungsten Mine reopens.

By Phil Brandel

Sunday 5 January, 2020

At 7 am tomorrow morning the Mount Carbine Tungsten mine on the Mulligan Highway will start its first treatment in over 4 years.

Russell Krause Executive Chairman of Specialty Metals International told the Express that “after months of hard work and over 10 million dollars of investment the mine would officially reopen at 7am on January 6.”

According to a statement issued to the Australian stock exchange “The plant will commence commercial operation, on a single day shift basis on the 6^th of January and as operational efficiencies are improved and people are trained the number of shifts will gradually be increased until the plant is operating at full capacity on a 24/7 basis.”

Mr Krause said “The first delivery of equipment for the restart arrived in September and interviews for local tradespeople started in November. By the time we go into full production, we will have 30- 40 full-time staff working here.”

Photos supplied Specialty Metals International

“The vast majority of our staff are locals, this is not a fly in fly out operation. We have decided to make providing locals with jobs a priority.”

The reopening of the mine will start by retreating low-grade material stockpiled at the site before it commences hard rock mining, MR Krause says that in the future “there are plans to run the mine 24 hours a day.”

According to Mr Karuse, both Federal and State governments were taking an active interest in the reopened tungsten mine as “Tungsten is listed as a critical mineral and this will be the first dedicated Tungsten mine back in production in Australia in a long time.”

Specialty Metals International entered into a joint venture with Cronimet Asia for the development of the Tungsten mine at Mount Carbine. In July 2019 the joint venture acquired 100% of Mt Carbine Quarries Pty Ltd, the entity that previously owned and operated the Mt Carbine quarry.

Mr Kauase said, “We look forward to working closely with the Cronimet team in bringing the Mt Carbine Tailings Retreatment and Stockpile Projects back into production.”

For Everyones Pleasure: from the Mareeba Express web page.

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