Eurobattery Minerals
Eurobattery Minerals appoints Pedro Jiménez de Francisco, former Plant Manager at Barruecopardo, to lead Tungsten San Juan and accelerate the path to production in 2027
Stockholm, 27 April 2026 – The mining company Eurobattery Minerals AB (Nordic Growth Market: “BAT” and Börse Stuttgart: “EBM”; hereinafter “Eurobattery Minerals” or the “Company” today announces the appointment of Pedro Jiménez de Francisco as Project Director of its subsidiary Tungsten San Juan, S.L., the company developing the San Juan tungsten project in A Gudiña (Ourense, Galicia, Spain). With this appointment, the Company strengthens its executive team and marks a decisive step towards the start of commercial production, scheduled for the first quarter of 2027.
Pedro Jiménez de Francisco will join the executive team on 27 April 2026 and will report directly to the Managing Director of Tungsten San Juan, Agne Ahlenius. His appointment completes the consolidation of a top-tier management team combining geological, technical and operational expertise specifically in tungsten, a scarce resource at European level. The appointment of Pedro will undoubtedly be a key factor for the successful execution of the mine’s development.
“The appointment of Pedro Jiménez de Francisco is excellent news for Tungsten San Juan, for Eurobattery Minerals and for our shareholders. Pedro joins us from leading the most important tungsten plant in Spain and has unmatched knowledge of the operational realities of scheelite production on the Iberian Peninsula. With Pedro Jiménez de Francisco and Agne Ahlenius at the helm, we have strong leaders and highly experienced tungsten professionals who will lay the foundations of this project. This is a team that not only knows how to build a mine, but also how to make it produce. With Pedro on board, we take a firm and decisive step towards achieving our objective of entering production in the first quarter of 2027,” says Roberto García Martínez, CEO of Eurobattery Minerals.
A track record aligned with the San Juan challenge
Pedro Jiménez de Francisco joins after serving as Plant Manager at the Barruecopardo tungsten mine (Salamanca), operated by Saloro, S.L. — a subsidiary of the listed Australian group EQ Resources Limited — the largest tungsten producer in Spain and one of the few operations outside the major traditional producing markets capable of delivering high-grade scheelite concentrate with low impurity levels. During his tenure, Pedro Jiménez de Francisco led benchmark projects for technological improvements in the sector, including the implementation of advanced ore sorting systems using X-ray transmission (XRT) for scheelite processing, experience directly applicable to the ore and specific characteristics of the San Juan deposit.
Pedro holds a Mining Engineering degree from the Technical University of Madrid, an Executive MBA from the University of Salamanca, and has completed a Senior Management Program (PDD). He brings more than two decades of experience in leadership roles across mining operations, processing plants and industrial and energy facilities, with a proven track record in achieving production records, optimizing resources and managing high-performance teams.
A team that knows how to build and operate a mine
With Pedro Jiménez de Francisco and Agne Ahlenius at the helm, Tungsten San Juan has a leadership team with direct experience in the tungsten sector, prepared to lay the foundations for the successful development of the project. Agne Ahlenius comments:
“Having a professional with Pedro’s profile accelerates our execution curve. His operational experience at Barruecopardo is the closest comparable in the market to what we are developing in A Gudiña. Pedro completes a particularly valuable operational capability in this final phase of engineering, construction and commissioning.”
The new Project Director joins a project of significant strategic relevance such as San Juan:
“I am joining a project with strong geological fundamentals, a top-tier team and an exceptional market environment for European tungsten. The mission is clear: to bring the mine into production within the committed timeframe and to do so with the technical, environmental and safety standards that the market and society expect from European mining today,” says Pedro Jiménez de Francisco, Project Director of Tungsten San Juan, S.L.
European tungsten, a strategic raw material
Tungsten is listed by the European Union as both a critical and strategic raw material under the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), due to its use in hard metals, special steels, superalloys, defence, aerospace and electronics. Global supply of the metal is highly concentrated outside the European Union, making the few European projects capable of delivering primary tungsten a first-order geostrategic asset. San Juan is positioned as one of these projects.
In line with its strategic nature, Tungsten San Juan, S.L. has applied for the project to be designated as a Strategic Project under the CRMA, a recognition that would further strengthen its role as a key element in the European critical raw materials supply chain.
The appointment of Pedro Jiménez de Francisco strengthens Eurobattery Minerals’ execution capacity and sends a clear signal to the market: Tungsten San Juan is progressing towards a clearly defined milestone — the start of commercial production in the first quarter of 2027.
Language versions
Eurobattery Minerals AB publishes information in English, Swedish, and German for the convenience of our shareholders and stakeholders. In the event of any discrepancies or inconsistencies between the language versions, the English version shall prevail.
| Datum | 2026-04-27, kl 08:15 |
| Källa | MFN |