Tungsten Prices Doubled in a Year and World Output Rose 3.7% — China Holds 78.8% of Mine Production

World mine production, 2025 estimate (tonnes)

China67,00078.8%

Vietnam3,0003.5%

Kazakhstan2,4002.8%

North Korea2,0002.4%

Russia2,0002.4%

Bolivia1,7002.0%

Rwanda1,3001.5%

Australia1,0001.2%

Other (Austria, Portugal, Spain and others)4,7405.6%

Rotterdam prices through 2025

Concentrate (65%)266 → 551×2.07

US$/mtu

APT331 → 675×2.04

US$/mtu

World output rose 3.7%, from 82,000 tonnes in 2024 to 85,000 in 2025, most of it the 2,400 tonnes newly produced in Kazakhstan. Everything mined outside China comes to 18,000 tonnes, roughly a quarter of China's own output.

Tungsten prices are rising, and Chinese export controls are the trigger.

The United States Geological Survey records the sequence: at the end of 2024 the United States raised tariffs to 50% on several tungsten products from China under section 301(b) of the Trade Act of 1974, and in February 2025 China implemented new export controls on selected tungsten items[1].

Prices followed. 65% concentrate went from $266 to $551 per metric ton unit and APT from $331 to $675[2]. Both roughly doubled.

Japan's metals and energy security agency followed the same year and reports that alongside the February notice tightening export restrictions, in April the Chinese government announced a ceiling on domestic concentrate production[3]. APT ran from $392.5 per tonne at the start of the year to above $800 from November onward[3].

Turn to the supply side and the picture changes. World mine production went from 82,000 tonnes in 2024 to 85,000 in 2025[4]. In a year when prices doubled, supply rose 3.7%.

Supply sits in one country

The reason it did not rise is where the metal sits.

Of the 85,000 tonnes in 2025, China mined 67,000[5], or 78.8%. On reserves, China holds 2.5 million tonnes against a world total of more than 4.7 million[1], 53.2%.

Add up everything mined outside China and it comes to 18,000 tonnes, under a third of China's own output. Diversifying the source runs into the fact that the alternatives do not add up to enough.

China is the largest producer and the largest importer

Reading the export controls purely as withholding misses something. The USGS records that China continued to be the world's leading producer, importer and consumer of tungsten concentrates, and that its consumption and imports increased significantly in 2025[1].

The country mining nearly four-fifths of world output is also the largest buyer. Less tungsten reaching export markets reflects not only a decision to hold it back but a rising volume consumed at home. Lift the restriction and that demand remains.

What the extra 3,000 tonnes actually was

The increase in 2025 is worth opening. Production started at the Boguty deposit in Kazakhstan, yielding 2,400 tonnes[1]. Most of the increase is that single project. One new mine came online and world supply moved 2.9%.

Read the other way: one new mine is what a 2.9% move costs.

Six in ten tonnes go into cutting tools, and substitutes only reduce

Demand does not bend easily. About 60% of tungsten consumed in the United States goes into cemented carbide parts[6] for cutting and wear resistance, used in construction, metalworking, mining and oil and gas drilling. The rest goes into alloys and specialty steels, electrodes, filaments and wire.

Substitutes exist: carbides of molybdenum, niobium or titanium, ceramics, cermets and tool steels. The USGS attaches a caveat. "Most of these options reduce rather than replace the amount of tungsten used." In some applications, substitution raises cost or loses performance.

Some uses have almost no alternative at all. For armour-piercing projectiles the listed options are depleted uranium alloys or hardened steel; where density or radiation shielding is required, the candidate list is short.

Recycling has no published figures

The other route to more supply is recycling. Yet the quantity of secondary tungsten produced, and the amount consumed from secondary sources by processors and end users, are both withheld to avoid disclosing company proprietary data[1].

Nothing whose current volume is unknown can be planned upward. In any discussion of diversifying supply, recycling sits there as the option without numbers.

Stockpiles exist; the days they cover do not appear

On the Japanese side, a Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry paper lists tungsten among the materials for cemented carbide tooling and specialty steel, and includes it in the national stockpile. With the addition of phosphorus, the stockpile now covers 35 minerals[7]. How many days of tungsten it holds is not stated.

The United States does publish a figure. For fiscal year 2025 the government stockpile shows potential acquisitions of 2,041 tonnes of tungsten and potential disposals of 499 tonnes of ores and concentrates[8]. The acquisition column is the one carrying a number.

The United States also has not mined tungsten commercially since 2015[1]. Net import reliance runs above 50% of apparent consumption[9], with import sources of China including Hong Kong at 26%, Germany 14%, Bolivia 8%, Vietnam 8% and other 44%[10].

What worked after the 2010 rare earth restrictions

The same thing happened in 2010, with rare earths.

The ministry paper sets out the response in three strands: upstream development, research into using less, and a complaint to the World Trade Organization. The dates are printed alongside.

In April 2011 JOGMEC and Sojitz put $250 million into Australia's Lynas, and in February 2013 commercial production began at its separation plant in Malaysia[7]. On research, a 54 billion yen programme started in December 2010, cutting rare earth use in polishing agents by February 2012, producing dysprosium-free magnets by September 2016 and lower-neodymium magnets by February 2018[7].

On the complaint, the United States, Japan and the EU requested a panel in July 2012; in August 2014 the WTO Appellate Body published a report stating that China's measures breached WTO rules; and in May 2015 China reported to the WTO that it had removed the export restrictions[7].

Four years and five months passed between the restriction and its removal. Through that period, the price was carried by the market.

How far do those three strands reach for tungsten? Taken one at a time, the gaps show.

Upstream development — two orders of magnitude short

For rare earths there was Lynas to build on. For tungsten, the equivalent means raising the 18,000 tonnes mined outside China. Kazakhstan's new mine delivers 2,400. Matching China's 67,000 would take 28 mines of that size.

Mines also do not open on decision. From exploration to production runs in decades rather than years. Anything begun after a restriction lands comes online after it lifts.

Using less — the distance between reducing and replacing

With rare earths, research on reducing use reached dysprosium-free magnets and lower-neodymium ones. The destination was "use less", not "use none", but in magnets that proved workable.

For tungsten, the USGS puts substitutes at "reduce but do not replace". The direction is the same; for the cutting edge of a carbide tool, the route to zero is not visible. The same phrase, resource efficiency, reaches a different distance depending on the metal.

A WTO complaint — the same instrument, and four years and five months

This strand carries over unchanged. There is a precedent in which China's measures were found to breach WTO rules, and the reasoning transfers directly.

The problem is time. From the panel request to the report of removal took four years and five months. How supply is bridged in the meantime is a separate question, and whether a stockpile covers that span is where the argument actually lands.

Of the three, one carries over

Upstream development is short on scale. Using less reaches a different distance. Only the complaint transfers intact, and it is not an instrument for buying time; it is one that takes time.

Having a precedent and being able to use it are two different things.

The price did not call in supply; it cut demand

There is a second structure in how the price moved.

In a market, a higher price brings more supply. In 2025 the price doubled. Supply moved 3.7%. Opening a mine takes years, so the price could only clear by removing demand. What could not be bought became what was not used.

What gets cut goes in order of who cannot pass the cost on. Cemented carbide goes to construction, metalworking and mining sites. The procurement difficulty and price rises reported in Japan sit at that end of the chain.

Where the United States is putting its money

The USGS also records what moved in 2025. In Canada and the United States, multiple projects received awards under the Defense Production Act, Title III, including projects in Nevada, New Brunswick and Yukon[1]. And in October a joint venture between Kazakhstan and the United States to develop tungsten resources was announced[11].

The instrument is the one Japan used for rare earths: put money upstream and add sources one at a time. As the previous section shows, one at a time means 2,400 tonnes at a time.

Days of stockpile against years of mine

The question reduces to comparing two spans: the days a stockpile covers, and the years an alternative source takes to stand up.

The Japanese paper does not say how many days of tungsten are held. What it states is that the stockpile covers 35 minerals and that the government subsidises JOGMEC for the interest on borrowing to buy them and for warehouse upkeep. Nothing whose covered span is unpublished can be argued to be sufficient or otherwise.

As set out in designing a resilient organisation（このサイトの記事）, designs that withstand uncertainty only work by building in advance the parts that cannot be built once the event arrives. Mines are the same: the years one takes to open exceed the notice a restriction gives.

The shape resembles the energy structure covered in the day the Strait of Hormuz closes（このサイトの記事）. What differs is the distance to an alternative. Crude has stockpiles and several sources. Tungsten sits in one country, and past the days a stockpile covers there is nowhere to turn.

As set out in the security clearance regime and economic security（このサイトの記事）, economic security has been built out on the institutional side. Institutions, though, do not add mines.

What the figures show is that starting to look for an alternative after the restriction lands carries no guarantee of arriving in time. A problem that took four years and five months in 2010 has opened again in 2025, on a different metal.

Further Reading

• 『レアメタルの地政学:資源ナショナリズムのゆくえ』（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） (Guillaume Pitron, translated by Shiori Kodama, Hara Shobo). A reported account, visiting the sites, of how decarbonisation and digitalisation deepen dependence on particular metals. Useful for seeing that tungsten is not an exception but one instance of a repeating shape.

References

Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Tungsten — U.S. Geological Survey (2026). U.S. Geological Survey

Developments in Metal Mineral Resources in 2025: Current Topics — Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (2026). JOGMEC

State of Mineral Resources Policy (Industrial Structure Council, Document 3) — Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Manufacturing Industries Bureau (2024). Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry