Ann: Paris DFS Update, page-44

A write-up on a website a few days ago that cannot be mentioned on HC for some reason ? .... but you will get the idea via the author G........


QUOTE : .......... So today Garimpeiro is reverting his critical and/or strategic metals focus to the metal that he knew to be a critical and/or strategic metal when he was a young man – tungsten.
Think of it as the original critical and/or strategic metal. It is undeniably so as it is a metal of economic importance, it can’t be substituted in its key applications, and 80% of the supply is controlled by our friends in China.
Having the highest melting point of all metals (3410°C), and being the hardest of all metals, tungsten has a myriad of uses in the aerospace and defence industries, mining equipment, construction and the automotive industry, among others.
There are some new high-end applications coming along like nano-wire. Even so, the overall tungsten market is not a big market at around 100,000t annually. But assuming just GDP-type growth in consumption, a supply gap is forecast to open up in the back half of the decade.
More mines are needed, and more non-Chinese mines are needed given China’s demonstrated willingness to mess with supplies of metals in which it dominates to make a political point.