Warren recently joined the Hazelwood team.  His background is as a mechanical engineer, with more than thirty years of experience in management, advisory and technical roles in the mining industry.  In addition to his work at Hazelwood, Warren is also the Managing Director at Optiro, a consulting firm that provides advice to Boards of mining companies.  Warren also serves as the Deputy Chairman of Austmine Limited, which is focused on developing mining equipment technology and services in Australia.  Warren brings to Hazelwood his background in smelting and pyrometallurgical operations with his work at the Kalgoorlie Nickel smelter and other specialty metals manufacturers.

Hazelwood Resources is focused on producing ferroalloy tungsten and holds a majority position in a large plant in Vietnam.  Additionally, the company owns the Mt Mulgine and Big Hill tungsten deposits in Australia and after recent resource upgrades now holds a global resource of 88.2 million tonnes for a contained 15.3 million MTU of WO₃

Said Warren, “I’m an engineer by background.I have been working in mining for thirty years now.” Warren is now focused on bringing his expertise to the projects that Hazelwood holds. He said, “I have come out of a consulting position to be the Chairman of Hazelwood.” In addition to Warren, there are others on the Board. He said, “This brings the Board to five people.”



The company has a range of mining projects that span both Australia and Vietnam. Said Warren, “Hazelwood has mining projects in Australia – large scale projects that are pre-development. We are also 60% owners of a project in Vietnam.” The project in Vietnam is currently in production on a limited basis. Said Warren, “In Vietnam, the tungsten plant was commissioned in 2013. We did our first production run in April of 2013. We have produced approximately 1200 tonnes of ferrotungsten thus far. We run it on a campaign process.” The future plans of the company include increasing the amount of production from that plant. Warren said, “We anticipate increasing that by over 50%. It is an automated furnace and we have successfully created products from the first run.” Now that the company has seen what the plant in Vietnam is capable of, they are focused on improving it. Said Warren, “We are focused on integrating and improving that process by increasing the capacity as time goes by. We will continue to optimize the running of the plant as we go forward.”

The company’s Australian holdings are varied.  Said Warren, “In Australia we have many assets.  We have Mt Mulgine and Big Hill tungsten projects in the mid-west region and Pilbara regions respectively.  We also have other nickel and non-core assets in the Pilbara.” Our tungsten projects are all scheelite and are of a very large scale.  We will be putting out new resource statements in the near future” said Warren.  Since the interview at ITIA Hazelwood has now released the upgrade of its Mulgine Trench deposit at Mt Mulgine in the mid-west.

How the company handles the future of the sites will depend on the price of tungsten.  Said Warren, “The current environment for ferrotungsten has changed in the last six months.  The price is quite low so the margin is quite low.”  Even with the margin low, the work that Hazelwood’s technical team is doing is paying off.  Warren said, “We are producing quite efficiently.  We get recovered products at 96 percent and we have proven we can treat a wide range of scheelite and wolframite concentrates and we look towards further improvements in the future.”

The company itself enjoys a good deal of support from shareholders.  Said Warren, “Hazelwood Resources is a publicly traded company and the market cap is about $34 million dollars Australian.  Our shareholders are well known individuals and institutional investors on the Australian market.” 

Warren invited George, Chen Guangyu, President of Asia Tungsten Products Vietnam Ltd who manufactures ferrotungsten in Vietnam to offer his take on what Hazelwood is doing. George said, “I’m from Hong Kong and have specialized in the tungsten business for 30 years.” George is enthusiastic about the future for Hazelwood’s joint partnerships.  He said, “We joined Hazelwood because the mine has good quality and supply.  We produce very good quality ferrotungsten.  Ferrotungsten requires a professional team with knowledge and management.  The team is very good in Vietnam. The workers like to learn and work as well. Hazelwood’s connections in Vietnam have made it easy to sell their products.”  George said “We sell our product through our mother company and distribute it easily.” 

Warren is positive about the future for Hazelwood.  He said, “We see that there are tremendous growth potential for tungsten and for Hazelwood.  There are lots of opportunities to produce ferrotungsten and develop other tungsten properties.  We have some of the lowest cost and best technology in tungsten. We think there is good leverage for shareholders.” Overall, Warren and his team believe that their company is one of the best plays in the market for tungsten.  He believes that investors would benefit from watching the company.  He said, “We’d like people to keep an eye on Hazelwood for the future.  Look for us to take a dominant share in the end of the market in which we operate.” 

For more information:

http://www.hazelwood.com.au/

Registered Office
Unit 2, 13 Oxleigh Drive
Malaga WA 6090

Postal Address
PO Box 2647  
Malaga WA 6944

Telephone: (08) 9320 5220
Facsimile: (08) 9320 5299
Email: info@hazelwood.com.au