Wedoany.com Report on Jan 31st, In January 2026, tungsten, an industrial metal long hidden behind the scenes, is sounding a shrill alarm with record-breaking prices. The price of Ammonium Paratungstate (APT) has surged past $1,125 per metric ton unit in China, with the European market also reaching historic highs. This is no ordinary cyclical fluctuation; it is a "perfect storm" ignited by tight inventories, export controls, and surging global military-industrial demand. As the cornerstone of high-end manufacturing and the defense industry, tungsten's steep price curve vividly reflects a more dangerous reality: global supply chains are being fundamentally reshaped by geopolitics.
The epicenter of this crisis is undoubtedly China. As the absolute global leader in tungsten mining and processing, China implemented export controls in February 2025, subsequently slashing its list of compliant export enterprises to just 15. Data shows these control measures caused China's tungsten exports to plummet by nearly 40% year-on-year. Annual production outside China totals only a few thousand tons, completely unable to fill this massive gap. Simultaneously, China has reduced its own mining quotas, while robust internal manufacturing demand devours more resources, further escalating global tensions.
In a 2025 interview for *Metals at the Summit*, Ali Haji, CEO of American Tungsten Ltd., discussed the company's recent developments and next steps. American Tungsten is a Canadian exploration company focused on high-potential tungsten and magnetite assets in North America. The company is advancing its Ima Mine project in Idaho towards commercial production to address metal scarcity in North America. It has joined the U.S. Defense Industrial Base Consortium to support the defense sector and completed a C$7 million oversubscribed financing, demonstrating strong market confidence in its critical metals strategy.
Tungsten's price surge is akin to a long-overdue alarm bell. During the post-Cold War "peace dividend" era, Western strategic stockpiles were continuously depleted without replenishment, and policy focus long neglected these "unremarkable" industrial materials. However, the situation has been overturned: as modern conflicts drive surging demand for critical equipment like armor-piercing rounds, tungsten, with its extreme density and hardness, has overnight leapt from an industrial supporting role to a frontline strategic material. This shift reveals a harsh truth: when a major producer chooses to tighten exports, the global industrial system's long-term reliance on a single supply chain exposes a fatal vulnerability.
Rebuilding a diversified supply chain is a difficult and lengthy road. Tungsten mining and processing are exceptionally challenging; its density rivals gold, yet it is as brittle as porcelain, leading many historical projects to fail due to technical bottlenecks. Beyond technical and capital hurdles, projects also face lengthy permitting processes and community resistance across various countries. Although policy tools like tariffs have been attempted, the long-term neglect of strategic stockpiles for critical metals renders any short-term remedial measures insufficient.
Market consensus holds that while prices may see technical corrections, the era of low tungsten prices has definitively ended. The current crisis marks a fundamental structural shift: in an era where supply chains have become tools of great power competition, critical materials like tungsten have transformed from obscure industrial inputs into touchstones testing national strategic resilience. The record-breaking tungsten price is a forced "awakening," compelling all parties to confront a core question: are they willing to pay the necessary cost for supply chain security before the shelves go empty?
