Tungsten West £71m Hemerdon restart: design and operations lens for mine teams
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on International Mining – News
30 Second Briefing
Tungsten West has secured up to £71 million from the UK Government’s National Wealth Fund to complete the financing package for restarting production at the Hemerdon tungsten and tin mine in Devon. The state-backed funding, structured alongside existing debt and equity arrangements, is intended to move Hemerdon from care and maintenance back into commercial output, targeting one of Europe’s largest tungsten resources. For geotechnical and processing teams, the restart will revive a large open-pit operation with complex ore characterisation, tailings management and plant optimisation requirements.
Technical Brief
- Funding package includes up to £71 million from the UK Government’s National Wealth Fund.
- NWF is a wholly owned UK Government entity, implying direct sovereign backing of the restart.
Our Take
Earlier 2026 coverage in our database shows Tungsten West already locking in key restart enablers at Hemerdon – an EPC contract with Duo Group for a new crushing/screening and ore-sorting plant and a Komatsu fleet supply via McHale – so the National Wealth Fund financing mainly de-risks execution rather than concept.
The National Wealth Fund’s parallel backing of the DataVita DV1/DV3 data centre expansion in Scotland indicates that Hemerdon is being treated alongside digital infrastructure as a strategic UK asset, which may help Tungsten West in future permitting or grid‑connection discussions in Devon.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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