Fortescue executive chairman and founder Andrew Forrest is set to become the largest shareholder in EQ Resources, putting around $190 million behind a north Queensland tungsten operation that Western buyers are increasingly relying on to source the metal outside China.
Tungsten is the hardest metal in commercial use, which is why it ends up in the carbide-tipped bits that cut through rock, concrete and steel on mine sites and construction jobs. It also goes into semiconductors, wind turbines and medical imaging equipment. China controls roughly 80 per cent of world production and has imposed export curbs on the metal.
“Tungsten is essential to the machines that build our homes, hospitals, cities and modern-day energy systems, as well as the semiconductors in every phone and computer. Yet global supply is remarkably concentrated,” Forrest said.
“This investment backs an Australian producer, Australian jobs and Australian know-how at the moment the world has woken up to how fragile critical mineral supply chains have become.”
Those jobs sit at Mt Carbine, an open pit and processing operation in north Queensland, and at Barruecopardo in Spain’s Salamanca province. Together they make EQ Resources the largest western tungsten producer.
Forrest spent two decades in the Pilbara turning Fortescue from a junior explorer into one of the world’s largest iron ore producers.
He buys the 16.8 per cent holding from Oaktree Capital Management, a US investment firm that has backed EQ Resources since 2023. Oaktree’s money bought the Barruecopardo mine and paid for the Mt Carbine expansion, and those two moves are what lifted EQ Resources to the front of western tungsten supply.
Nothing changes at either mine. The transaction sits at the shareholder level, leaving EQ Resources’ strategy, day-to-day operations, management and employees as they are.
Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King has pointed to the same supply picture, arguing Australia has a responsibility to help build alternatives after China’s export controls on gallium left manufacturers exposed.
Established mining names have been moving into critical minerals developers that financial investors got to first. Hancock Prospecting backed Arafura Rare Earths years before the Nolans project in the Northern Territory reached a final investment decision in May, and that early support helped Arafura secure the debt financing and government backing that followed.
EQ Resources managing director Craig Bradshaw said the identity of the new owner matters as much as the size of the holding.
“We warmly welcome Dr Forrest’s investment in the Company. It is a strong endorsement for EQ Resources to see the ownership baton passed from a financial investor to a stalwart of the Australian mining industry with a proven track record of developing and growing assets,” Bradshaw said.
“This is a great vote of confidence in EQ Resources, our people, and the growth strategy we are executing across our operations in Australia and Spain.”