Tungsten

What it is

Tungsten (chemical symbol W, from its German name wolfram) is the densest of the stable metals, with a melting point of 3,422 degrees Celsius, the highest of any element. Those properties make it irreplaceable in two overlapping domains: hardmetals (cemented carbide, combining tungsten carbide powder with a cobalt binder, forms the cutting edges in drills, milling inserts, mining bits, and wire-drawing dies) and dense alloys for armour-piercing kinetic energy penetrators and radiation shielding. Roughly 70-75% of global tungsten consumption goes to cemented carbide for industrial tooling; defence applications account for a smaller but strategically sensitive share tied to munitions that cannot be reformulated quickly. The primary traded intermediate is ammonium paratungstate (APT), from which tungsten metal powder, oxide, and carbide are derived. China controls approximately 80-88% of global refined tungsten output. Other producing countries include Vietnam, Russia, Bolivia, and Canada; South Korea re-entered production in March 2026.

History

Tungsten was isolated in 1783 by Spanish chemists Juan Jose and Fausto Elhuyar from ore found in Extremadura. The metal became industrially significant in the early 20th century through its use in high-speed steel for cutting tools. South Korea's Sangdong mine in Gangwon Province was once among the world's largest tungsten operations; China's expansion of subsidised mining through the 1990s drove global prices low enough to render Sangdong uneconomical, and the mine closed in 1992. By 2010, China supplied over 80% of global refined tungsten. Western governments treated this concentration as a commodity dependency rather than a security risk until China's progressive critical-minerals export-control programme began with gallium and germanium controls in August 2023. Tungsten controls followed on February 4, 2025, when China's Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs imposed licensing requirements on tungsten APT, tungsten oxide, tungsten carbide, specialised alloys, and related production technologies, citing national security and non-proliferation obligations.

Current state

China designated 15 companies as authorised tungsten exporters for 2026-2027, compressing supply through a narrow gatekeeping set. The Western APT benchmark (88.5% WO3, CIF Rotterdam) rose from $900-940 per metric tonne unit (mtu) in January 2026 to $1,650-1,900 per mtu by mid-February 2026 and broke $3,050 per mtu by May 7, 2026. Ferrotungsten moved from approximately $45 per kg W to $200-210 per kg W between early 2025 and March 2026, roughly a 350% increase. Downstream hardmetal suppliers reported multi-month delivery backlogs as of mid-2026. Almonty Industries completed Phase 1 commissioning at Sangdong on March 17, 2026; Phase 1 produces approximately 2,300 tonnes of tungsten concentrate per year. Phase 2, targeting 4,600 tpa and planned for 2027, would at full capacity supply approximately 40% of global demand outside China. The US Defence Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) prohibits, from January 1, 2027, delivery of tungsten metal powder, tungsten heavy alloy, or components in which any production stage (mining, refining, melting, or fabrication) occurred in China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea. The US government also launched Project Vault, a US$12 billion initiative to stockpile critical minerals including tungsten.

Relationships

The current supply and price disruption is tracked in 안티몬 공급 부족은 2,600% 가격 급등 이후에도 지속, 텅스텐 APT는 알몬티가 한국 상동광산 가동하며 557% 급등, which covers both metals through China's 2024-2025 export-control cycle. Tungsten's broader strategic context, alongside gallium, germanium, antimony, platinum, and palladium, is documented in Minor metals chokepoints: gallium, germanium, antimony, tungsten, platinum and palladium. Key actors: China's Ministry of Commerce (licence allocation), Almonty Industries (Toronto-listed, operator of Sangdong and mines in Portugal and Germany), and European and Japanese hardmetal producers including Sweden's Sandvik, US-based Kennametal, and Luxembourg's Ceratizit. A sustained repricing of tungsten carbide propagates across every sector that depends on precision machining.

What to watch

• Whether the US DFARS ban from January 1, 2027 forces defence prime contractors to qualify Sangdong ore before Chinese-origin stockpiles are exhausted, given that material qualification for armour-piercing penetrators takes 18-24 months.
• Almonty Sangdong Phase 2 commissioning in 2027 and whether offtake agreements cover defence as well as hardmetal buyers.
• New greenfield projects in Uzbekistan, the US, and England (Hemerdon mine restart), all with decade-plus lead times from discovery to production.
• APT price trajectory: the May 2026 level of $3,050 per mtu represents a floor test; further tightening of the 15-company Chinese export quota would push prices higher and accelerate demand for non-Chinese scrap recycling.