EU grants strategic status to Spanish copper and tungsten projects
The European Commission has designated a copper mine in A Coruña and a tungsten-processing plant in Ciudad Real as strategic projects. The designation offers faster permitting and support in securing finance and buyers, although the Galician mine still awaits an environmental decision.
Two Spanish projects join the EU strategic list
The European Commission has selected two Spanish projects designed to expand domestic supplies of copper and tungsten, adding them to its second group of strategic projects under the Critical Raw Materials Act. The projects are Cobre San Rafael’s planned reopening of the Touro and O Pino copper mines in A Coruña and ABT Abenójar Tungsten’s processing plant in Puertollano, Ciudad Real.
According to EFE, the Spanish projects form part of a new list of 46 initiatives across 16 EU member states. Eight concern extraction, 11 processing and 19 recycling, while eight integrate more than one stage of the supply chain. Together, they cover 15 of the EU’s 17 strategic raw materials and require an estimated €21.1 billion in investment. The European Commission has not specified how much public funding will be available.
Copper project faces an environmental hurdle
The Galician project is promoted by Cobre San Rafael, a company in which Atalaya Mining participates. It would reopen the copper mines at Touro and O Pino for an expected operating period of 16 years, with planned investment of €200 million. The regional government of Galicia declared it a strategic industrial project in June 2024, but it remains subject to an environmental impact decision.
That approval process is material for investors and prospective buyers because an earlier version of the project received an unfavourable environmental impact declaration in 2020. The current proposal also faces opposition from local residents’ groups. EU strategic status therefore improves the project’s access to administrative and financial support, but does not replace the environmental assessment or remove the risks associated with local opposition.
Tungsten chain extends from mine to processing
The second project concerns ABT Abenójar Tungsten’s planned processing operation in Puertollano. Its upstream component, the El Moto mine at Abenójar, was already selected in the EU’s first round of strategic projects. EFE describes El Moto as the world’s largest tungsten deposit outside China and reports that the extraction project expects to reach annual production of 420,000 metric tonnes of tungsten trioxide units from the first quarter of 2029.
Strategic projects can benefit from permitting periods of 27 months for extraction and 50 months for processing and recycling, as well as assistance in reaching financiers and buyers. The broader EU target for 2030 is to extract at least 10% of its annual consumption of strategic raw materials inside the bloc, process 40% and recycle 25%. The Commission says the new projects, combined with previously selected initiatives, could meet all EU extraction benchmarks for lithium, nickel, rare earths, magnesium and tungsten, as well as the processing benchmarks for lithium and rare earths.
The policy is intended to limit exposure to dominant external suppliers. Commission data cited by EFE show that China provides 100% of the heavy rare earths and 97% of the magnesium consumed by the EU, while Turkey supplies 99% of its boron, Chile 79% of its lithium and South Africa 71% of its platinum. For Spain’s two newly selected projects, the immediate commercial significance lies in linking a potential new copper mine and an integrated tungsten chain to faster permitting, financing support and European industrial demand.
