Like usual this is just my non professional opinion.
Not all tungsten ore can utilise XRT sorters. The mine plan from back in what? At a guess 2016 probably didn’t consider XRT sorters. The mine went live in 2019. EQR, correct me if I'm wrong, first started entertaining the idea of XRT sorters in 2020 with the Mets research fund kicking it off. So it was 1 year after Barruecopardo went online EQR started research, pilot tests and trials. It has been 3 years since then and a lot of effort and brain power has been put into the use of XRT sorters at Mt Carbine. EQR now has 3 XRT sorters at Mt Carbine.
If they didn't include XRT sorters in the plan then how would they have picked them up? The Saloro JV had one job, to get Barruecopardo profitable, they didn’t. Barruecopardo is now owned by Oaktree, they are not miners. You ask “ Why did they not trial one(XRT sorter)?“ They did, they got a team involved that were miners with XRT sorter experience on a tungsten mine. Considering the deal that was signed they were IMO obviously very happy with their decision
“Or did Oaktree want to move on?” Oak tree are now a 15% shareholder of and have a board member on the largest tungsten producer in the western world, before that they were $200m+??? in the red and losing more every day.
