Global tungsten demand supply excluding China

I’ve always wondered why the US was so bold to impose a restriction of importing Tungsten from China from 2026 when China supposedly controlled 65% of the global supply of tungsten. I was also baffled at why the tungsten price didn’t move at all despite China recently imposing restrictions on the export of dual use super hard material to the US, which I assume would include tungsten.

However, when I dug a little deeper on the current global demand and supply dynamics of the tungsten market, I discovered why despite current geopolitical developments, the price of tungsten hasn’t moved much at all.

Firstly, these are the main suppliers of tungsten globally inclusive of China. It’s obvious that China controls a huge percentage of the market:

  

So if you remove China from the equation, the rest of the world currently produces 19000 to 20600 MT per annum. If you exclude Russia as well, the supply drops to 13000 to 14600 MT per annum.

Now let’s have a closer look at global demand exclusive of China and Russia :


As you can see, global demand excluding China and Russia is actually currently only 11000 to 14000 MT per annum. So to my surprise, even without supply from China or Russia, supply is currently sufficient to meet demand.

This now explains why there hasn’t been any sudden spike in the tungsten price despite all the latest headlines highlighting the end of the US buying Tungsten from China. Also important to note that while the US has decided to stop purchasing from China, the rest of the world has not imposed similar restrictions so there is still more than adequate supply of tungsten from China to supply the rest of the world.

Definitely something to be aware of and to research and discuss further.

Nevertheless, the tungsten price has at least remained stable at least for now so let’s just hope that EQR can continue to improve its production and recoveries so that it can at least be profitable even at current Tungsten prices.

Also important to note that the uses of tungsten for aerospace, defence, fusion and nuclear energy developments and EVs has been rising so hopefully, demand will continue to rise.