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Apollo’s Couflens is the high-grade tungsten project you’ve been sleeping on

• Industrial powerhouse France requires its own reliable tungsten supplies for national and energy security
• Couflens’ tungsten grade profile is 10 times that of other projects, with drilling to begin this year
• Potential for gold to improve the project runway as rock chip samples show up to 24.5g/t gold

There’s an elegant French twist to the tungsten story as Europe chases its own reliable supplies of the military metal.

Apollo Minerals (ASX:AON) is planning to restart one of the world’s highest-grade tungsten mines, with geopolitics in flux and prices running hot – rising 10x in the past 15 months.

Couflens has been flying under the radar as US-focused projects grab the headlines amid the US Department of Defense’s push for a domestic supply chain to end China’s dominance.

But the high-grade project, which Apollo is calling Europe’s “prime” tungsten opportunity, is well worth a closer look.

“What differentiates us from projects in the US is the grade profile, which is arguably 10 times higher than the grades you’re seeing from other projects,” AON managing director Neil Inwood told Stockhead.

“The national interest is very strong. France is after these materials.”

The Couflens tungsten project is located 130km south of Toulouse, a high-tech hub for aerospace and space systems as well as AI and green energy technologies, in the Pyrenees region near the border with Spain.

“Where the project is located, it’s just in a perfect position for this material to be used,” Inwood said.

“A high-tech manufacturing hub with Airbus, defence industries … it’s tech, it’s defence, it’s green, it’s a great location.

“The messaging I’m getting from the French state, from the ministry, is they would like us to move forward on the studies as quickly as possible.”

And it’s worth keeping in mind that it’s not just tungsten.

“I’m quite convinced we’re going to define some high-grade tungsten mineralisation. But there’s also a gold overprint on this,” Inwood explained.

“To be clear, this is a tungsten operation, but we’re expecting some quite interesting gold results.

“For both commodities, the value has increased remarkably due to structural world events. This is the prime project in Europe to take advantage.”

Runway to drilling

Hit by low prices in the 1980s as cheap Chinese material flooded the market, Couflens closed in 1986 after producing 930,000 tonnes of ore at 1.5% WO3 (tungsten trioxide).

Mining averaged 2.5% WO3 in Couflens’ final year of operation in a system intertwined with gold.

Now, reflecting a structural deficit and Chinese export controls, tungsten prices have staged a dramatic ten-fold rally in the past year with ammonium paratungstate trading at US$3289 per metric tonne unit (10kg).

The formal reinstatement of the Couflens exploration permit was achieved in January, giving green light for a mine restart.

While tungsten is focus, Apollo has signalled significant potential for gold mineralisation with up to 24.5g/t Au associated with tungsten mineralisation at surface.

“We’ve just had this asset allocated to us a few weeks ago, a matter of 10 weeks,” Inwood said.

“So we’re hitting the ground running and we have an incredible database of historical drilling.

“These are grade profiles you’re just not seeing anywhere else. A large portion of this region has not been mined.”

“We’re finalising the permits to access the mine for more in-depth work and we want to be leaning into drilling into this year as well – expansion drilling and confirmatory drilling.”

Apollo is also looking to work with French institutions, and has already been approached to partner up on some studies.

Unexplored since 2019, AON shares have run 560% higher since the exploration licence was reinstated by the French Government in January.

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Source: Stockhead