Could there be a perfect storm brewing in the tungsten space ?As...

Could there be a perfect storm brewing in the tungsten space ?

As per scottm' post - a heck of a lot of tungsten is being consumed between the two European conflicts of Russia/Ukraine and the Palestinians/Hamas vs Israeli.

As posted by Plonka - China is restricting its exports of tungsten (see headlines below)
" BEIJING, Nov 13 (Reuters) - China's Ministry of Commerce on Monday issued an update of its requirements for exporters of tungsten, silver and antimony for the next two years.
Enterprises that intend to export tungsten during 2024 and 2025 must have a bank credit line of no less than 200 million yuan ($27.42 million), the ministry said in a document posted on its website "

The most interesting point in this headline is the start date of 2024 - Hello ! Thats not even 2 months away until supply from China will be curtailed.

Meanwhile, on the western world mining front, Almonty is once again dragging the chain on Sandong (do they do anything else, apart from raise money), G6M, who clearly have been very good at spending bucket loads of money now look like they're on their last puff of air, Tungsten West is in a huge hiatus and appealing for Governmental sympathy and Fireweed Metals in Canada are 4 years away.
In short, apart from our EQR team, most other tungsten mining aspirants are not currently in a position to step up to the plate and plug some of these gaps.

This is huge pressure on producers - Almonty do have a producing tungsten mine in Portugal, Masan have Nui Phao and we have our 2 producing mines in Qld and Spain (circa 300+ tonnes per month) plus Wolfram Camp awaiting some tlc when the time is right.

Does this sound like the ingredients for a perfect storm ?
Massively steep consumption due to conflict
Chinese exports being curtailed
Western miners struggling to get to production phase

Market pundits have been forecasting a late 2023/early 2024 uptick in the tungsten price for quite a while now - but now the Russia/Ukraine conflict has escalated in recent months, then along comes Israel/Palestine, China cuts exports and western mines fall behind.

This is really going to be very interesting to see how this plays out.... but I'm glad we are in production and still only in the early stages of significant ramping up in both mines.