Tungsten West is deploying six Tomra Mining CRT sorters equipped with Obtain Deep Learning technology at the Hemerdon tungsten mine in England, targeting ramp-up to full-scale production in the first quarter of 2027. Hemerdon is positioned to become a strategically significant non-China source of tungsten for European industry
Tomra Mining is at the centre of the redesigned processing plant at Tungsten West’s Hemerdon mine in Devon, England, as the project develops from restarting operations in September 2026 to full production in early 2027.
Six Tomra Mining XRT ore sorters equipped with Obtain Deep Learning technology will form the backbone of a new sorting house at the mine’s front end. As tungsten prices rise and Western industry seeks alternatives to Chinese supply, Hemerdon’s restart is a significant development in the critical minerals sector outside China.
A strategic moment for tungsten
Tungsten is one of the most industrially versatile metals on earth; it has the highest melting point of all known elements (3,422°C), extreme density, and exceptional hardness in carbide form, making it indispensable across mining and construction tooling, transport, aerospace, defence, energy, and electronics. Demand is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 2% to 5% through to 2033, requiring a minimum of 26,000 additional tonnes.
However, global supply remains heavily concentrated, with China accounting for around 80% of tungsten concentrate production, and its domestic output has been declining as environmental regulations reduce mining activity. Recent Chinese export restrictions have also sharpened the focus of governments and industry on securing alternative sources.
With this in mind, Hemerdon’s restart carries significance beyond a single mining operation. The UK government lists tungsten as a critical mineral, and domestic tungsten production is a strategic priority for British supply-chain resilience.
Based on its reserve base, Hemerdon could account for 4.1% of global tungsten production, contributing to non-China supply and supporting the European tungsten ecosystem, where several operations are working to reduce dependence on Chinese imports.
For tungsten producers, the ability to ramp up quickly, process ore efficiently, and maximise recovery from complex ore bodies is a competitive necessity. For Tungsten West, the redesigned processing flowsheet and the integration of Tomra Mining’s sorting technology are central to Hemerdon’s planned restart and to the company’s ambition to establish the mine as a world-scale, low-cost and long-life tungsten asset in the Western world.
Hemerdon
Hemerdon holds one of the world’s largest tungsten resources and will soon be the largest tungsten mine in the Western world. Originally built in 2014, the processing plant operated from 2015 to 2018, before ceasing production.
In 2019, Tungsten West acquired the mine and has undertaken a comprehensive investment and redesign programme to bring it back into production on a more robust, environmentally compliant, and technically advanced basis.
The redesign included a full rebuild of the plant’s front end with new primary crushing, screening, and a dedicated new sorting house, feeding into a system that incorporates inline pressure jigs (IPJs) downstream. The combined front end is designed to increase feed grade and reduce the volume of material requiring full downstream processing.
An independent review of the processing flowsheet by external industry experts, followed by an updated feasibility study signed off by independent specialists, validated the new approach and underpins the current restart programme.
Sensor-based sorting at the heart of the new front end
Following bulk test work with Tomra Mining to ensure sorter performance parameters reflect future plant feed, Tungsten West has selected a six-sorter installation to process the 10-80mm fraction of material from the primary and secondary crushing circuit.
Jeffery Court, CEO of Tungsten West, said, “The Tomra sorters play a key role in our operating model, as they select the best material for our mineral processing facility. By reducing the amount of material that enters the full downstream processing circuit, they help lower our processing costs and environmental footprint, while allowing us to focus on the best recoverable tungsten feed. The material not selected for further processing also generates a high-value aggregate product for local construction activity.”
Material from the secondary crusher is fed to a stockpile, discharging via underground feeders to a wet screen that classifies it into three fractions:
- Below 10mm, which passes to the pressure jigging and dense media separation circuits
- 10-30mm, treated by three COM Tertiary XRT machines
- 30-80mm, treated by three COM XRT 2.0 units
The sorters, which all operate in parallel within the new sorting house, are designed to direct 30% of incoming material to the downstream concentrator for tungsten and tin recovery. The remaining 70% is ‘rejected’ as a premium aggregate by-product, available to the construction industry with a near-zero incremental carbon footprint.
Obtain
All six Tomra sorters at Hemerdon will feature Obtain, Tomra Mining’s AI tool, with proprietary Deep Learning technology that brings single-particle precision to high-throughput XRT ore sorting. Using a neural network to identify each particle’s properties accurately and independently of operating capacity, Obtain addresses a fundamental challenge in high-throughput sorting: particles often appear in clusters that the sensor reads as a single object, leading to imprecise ejection decisions. Breaking down those clusters algorithmically enables accurate, particle-level decisions even at high feed rates.
Jens-Michael Bergmann, global segment manager, Industrial Minerals at Tomra Mining, said, “With Obtain, we can feed each sorter with about 80% more material and have the same quality and the same recovery rates as before. In short, we can simply run double the capacity.”
The capacity benefit is significant for tungsten ore, where mineralisation, primarily as wolframite or scheelite, is typically present as discrete inclusions within host rock. Accurate particle-level detection is critical to recovery and waste grade: Obtain’s precise, individual-particle sorting decisions, maintained even in dense, high-speed feed streams, minimise tungsten loss to the waste stream, a commercially significant outcome when prices place a premium on every recorded unit.
Jeffery Court, CEO of Tungsten West, said, “We are delighted to have Tomra as a long-term strategic partner for us at Hemerdon. The technology package we are installing represents a strong step-change for the project and will help ensure that we are a better and more resilient producer of tungsten over the long term.”
Environmental design built into the plant
The sorting process itself is central to the environmental case. By directing 70% of the mined material to a premium aggregate stream without downstream crushing, grinding, milling, or flotation, the system eliminates the energy consumption and associated emissions that processing that material would have generated. This underpins the close-to-zero-incremental-carbon-footprint credentials of the aggregate by-product.
Jens-Michael Bergmann said, “When you remove 70% of the rocks directly to the aggregate stream – without spending energy on crushing and grinding, milling and flotation and jigging – that is a huge amount of energy you do not spend. This, alongside the increase in grade, is the main advantage of sorting: a significant reduction in carbon emissions.”
A key supplier for the European tungsten market
Hemerdon’s restart comes as tungsten supply across Europe is under heightened strategic attention. Alongside existing operations in Spain and Portugal, a new generation of tungsten projects is progressing across the continent, collectively working to reduce exposure to Chinese export policy.
Hemerdon’s scale and proximity to UK and European markets make it well positioned to play a central role in that supply picture. Tomra Mining’s sensor-based sorting technology, and Obtain in particular, is central to that positioning, providing Tungsten West the processing efficiency, recovery performance, and operational confidence to bring a resource of this scale into production at the right moment.
Jeffery Court, CEO of Tungsten West, said, “With the addition of process improvements, environmental upgrades, and new technology such as the TOMRA ore sorters, Tungsten West will be firmly positioned in the lowest quartile of the tungsten production cost curve globally. This supports Hemerdon’s longevity as a world-scale, low-cost and long-life tungsten asset located in the Western world.”
With all six Tomra Mining sorters scheduled for installation through Q4 2026, Hemerdon is on course for full production from the end of Q1 2027, marking a step toward establishing a reliable, large-scale source of tungsten for European industry at a moment when the need for non-China supply has never been more pressing.
