Spain's El Moto Tungsten Mine Signs 10-Year Exclusive Offtake Agreement

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On October 7, Spanish mining developer Abenójar Tungsten and Traxys Europe jointly announced a long-term exclusive offtake agreement for the El Moto tungsten project, with the two parties having formally signed on October 3. Under the agreement, Traxys will exclusively purchase all tungsten concentrate produced by the project, with a contract term lasting at least 10 years from the start of commercial production. El Moto is located in the Abenójar area of Ciudad Real Province, Spain. Early-stage construction began in 2026, with first production planned for the first quarter of 2029. At full capacity, the project is expected to produce more than 4,200 tonnes per year of tungsten concentrate products corresponding to tungsten trioxide content.

The two parties signed a binding long-term offtake agreement using a take-or-pay arrangement, covering 100% of the project's planned tungsten concentrate production. The agreement takes effect from the project commissioning stage and continues until the later of two conditions: 10 full years of commercial production or completion of the agreed minimum delivery tonnage. Traxys is responsible for global sales, transportation logistics, and distribution of the concentrate, and must seek the best available purchase quotations from international customers. The sales price is linked to the international ammonium paratungstate (APT) price index, and ABT receives payments from Traxys' final external sales revenue after deducting supply chain costs and trade service fees.

The El Moto project's 2026 definitive feasibility study plans to use underground mining, transporting ore to surface processing facilities via decline ramps, producing tungsten concentrate and separate gold concentrate. The processing plant is initially designed with a capacity of 1 million tonnes of ore per year, with plans to expand to 1.5 million tonnes around 2031. The project's production plan is based on an 18-year ore processing period and a 20-year overall mine development cycle. This offtake covers only tungsten concentrate; gold concentrate is not included in the contract scope.

The project has obtained major mining, environmental, and construction approvals, with initial development capital expenditure estimated at approximately EUR 211 million. ABT is planning a main board listing on the London Stock Exchange in the fourth quarter of 2026, and has reached conditional terms with Deutsche Bank for senior debt financing of up to EUR 110 million and contingent debt financing of up to EUR 9.45 million. The proposed financing remains subject to the signing of formal loan documents and satisfaction of relevant conditions precedent, and proceeds from the listing are planned to be partly used for construction of the El Moto project.

Under the offtake agreement, if ABT builds downstream tungsten product processing facilities in the future, it may allocate an agreed portion of production from the offtake volume to directly supply its own processing operations.