American Tungsten Corp. (TSXV: TUNG, OTCQB: DEMRF)
Building America’s Defense Critical Metals Supply
If you had to pick the best-performing commodity of the past year, gold and copper might come to mind. But the real answer is one most people have never heard of: tungsten.
This obscure industrial metal, used primarily in weapons and defense manufacturing, has quietly become one of the world’s top-performing commodities. According to Fastmarkets data cited by Almonty Industries, the European price for ammonium paratungstate (APT)—the main benchmark for tungsten—has surged to approximately $2,250 per metric ton unit.
Since China imposed export controls on certain tungsten products last year, prices have climbed an eye-popping 557%, leaving mainstream commodities like gold and copper in the dust.
The price explosion traces directly to a seismic shift in global supply chains. In a strategic move amid trade tensions with Washington, Beijing added specific tungsten products to its export control list. The impact was immediate: data shows shipments of restricted tungsten products from China fell by an estimated 40% last year.
Given China’s iron grip on global tungsten supplies, this tightening quickly sparked a buying frenzy. The numbers tell the story: according to the U.S. Geological Survey, China accounted for 79% of the roughly 85,000 metric tons of tungsten mined globally last year, while holding the world’s largest reserves. When the world’s dominant supplier turned off the taps, Western manufacturers scrambled for any available material.
George Heppel, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets, describes the current situation in striking terms: “In my 12 years working across the commodity space and dealing with a lot of weird and wonderful metals, I have never seen a market as tight as tungsten is right now—aside from maybe lithium in 2021.”
But there’s a crucial difference from lithium’s 2021 surge. Tungsten has few projects ready to quickly expand supply. “This isn’t like lithium, where there was a huge pipeline of projects that could come online,” Heppel added. The supply squeeze, in other words, may have staying power.
Tungsten’s physical properties—extreme hardness, density and heat resistance—make it indispensable for modern defense applications. It’s essential for armor-piercing ammunition, aerospace components, semiconductors and heavy industrial cutting tools. As geopolitical tensions rise and military spending increases globally, these uses have become increasingly critical.
Lewis Black, CEO of Almonty Industries, puts it bluntly: “The industrial base is desperate for material.” He noted that U.S. authorities recently contacted his company about immediate material availability—a telling sign of the urgency.
Tungsten’s spectacular rally has sharpened Western governments’ concerns about their dependence on China for critical minerals. Project Blue estimates the global tungsten market at about $16 billion this year—roughly 5% the size of the copper market. But its strategic importance far outweighs its modest market size.
Facing supply chain vulnerabilities, governments and manufacturers are hunting for alternatives. Some dormant projects are springing back to life. Almonty Industries recently restarted production at South Korea’s Sangdong mine, one of the world’s historically largest tungsten operations, after more than three decades of inactivity. If expansion plans proceed in 2027, the project could supply roughly 40% of global tungsten demand outside China.
Despite these efforts, analysts expect the supply crunch to persist in the near term. Tungsten doesn’t trade on major exchanges, making its market opaque and illiquid—and its price swings more volatile.
Lewis Black argues that the price surge reflects a fundamental shift: users have drawn down inventories, and China’s export restrictions have finally allowed prices to reflect true supply and demand, rather than being artificially suppressed by Chinese subsidies. “We’ve never been in a situation where the market is determining the price,” he said. “So we don’t really know where it’s going to settle.”
What seems clear is that as long as geopolitical tensions remain on the global agenda, tungsten—this “war metal”—will continue to serve as a strategic linchpin in the great-power competition, with its price and supply flows keeping governments and industries on edge.
