EQ Resources (EQR), a tungsten mining company with operations in Australia and Spain, released a series of capital-raising announcements over June and July, highlighting a busy period of fundraising activity.

Most recently, on 29 July, EQR announced that its wholly owned Spanish subsidiary, Saloro, has entered into a funding agreement with Oaktree Capital Management, its largest shareholder. Under the agreement, Oaktree will provide US$7.5M in funding, to be repaid through a 2.5% royalty on gross proceeds from the sale of tungsten concentrate produced at its Barruecopardo Mine in Spain. The funds will be used to support ongoing developments at Barruecopardo.

Earlier, on 7 July, EQR announced it had secured firm commitments to raise A$4M (US$2.6M) through a placement of 114.3 million new fully paid ordinary shares to fund capital projects at its Mt Carbine operation in Australia, focused on waste stripping, plant expansion, and optimisation work.

On 27 June, the company disclosed that it had received a Letter of Interest (LOI) from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) to support the Mt Carbine Tungsten Expansion Project. The LOI outlines EXIM’s willingness to consider a 10-year debt facility of up to US$34M under its new Supply Chain Resiliency Initiative. This initiative is designed to support non-Chinese sources of critical minerals and an alternative supply chain to the US. The expansion project at Mt Carbine targets a doubling of current production capacity and upgrading resources to reserves.

These fundraising efforts come at a pivotal time for EQR, as tungsten supply tightens, particularly outside China. EQR’s WO₃-in-concentrate output at Mt Carbine fell in recent quarters, reaching 90t in Q4 2024 (down 65% q-o-q) and 67t in Q1 2025. Contrastingly, Barruecopardo’s performance improved, producing 322t in Q4 2024 (up 19% q-o-q) and 300t in Q1 2025.

In the short term, these new funds could fast-track waste stripping and improve feed grades at Mt Carbine, helping production return to normal levels. At Barruecopardo, enhanced ore-sorting technology could drive output growth. Together, these developments may help relieve some of the current pressure on global tungsten supply.