Finance
Tungsten mine opens in Korea as U.S. seeks non-China critical minerals
Workers transporting soil containing rare earth elements for export at a port in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, China, Oct. 31, 2010.
Stringer | Reuters
BEIJING — China will start limiting exports of critical metal tungsten this weekend, just as alternatives to Chinese suppliers of the metal are reopening.
It’s a reversal of past decades, during which, according to analysts, Chinese businesses poured cheap tungsten into the global market to put competitors out of business — eventually controlling 80% of the supply chain, according to Argus. Tungsten is an extremely hard metal used in weapons and semiconductors.
As part of new rules limiting exports of “dual use” goods — which can be used for military or civilian purposes — China’s Ministry of Commerce earlier this month released a list indicating that businesses wanting to export a range of tungsten and critical mineral products would need to apply for licenses. The latest measures will take effect Dec. 1.
The move comes as escalating U.S.-China tensions boost demand for non-China tungsten. The U.S. Defense Department has banned its contractors from buying China-mined tungsten starting Jan. 1, 2027.
“It’s a bit late for the Chinese on tungsten,” said Christopher Ecclestone, principal and mining strategist at Hallgarten & Company.
“Everybody needs more tungsten. That’s the message out there right now,” he said. “The thing that’ll prompt more tungsten is not a Chinese ban. It’s a Chinese ban causing [it to become more] profitable to mine tungsten.”
Ecclestone pointed out that tungsten prices have not reacted much to China’s announcement. For mining the metal to be significantly profitable, he estimates prices would need to trade $50 higher than their current price of around $335 — measured by the industry in per metric ton units of ammonium para tungstate, in which one metric ton unit is 10 kilograms.
Higher prices in the U.S. alone could encourage more tungsten production.
While China restricts tungsten exports, the U.S. increased tariffs on Chinese tungsten by 25% in September. The majority of public comments on the U.S. tungsten tariffs supported the duties, noting benefits for domestic manufacturing. Some even requested the duties rise to 50%.
It may take years to open a mine, but more tariffs, expected under a Trump administration, could make it “more commercially viable” for some U.S. mining projects to reopen, said Cullen S. Hendrix, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
‘Friendshoring’ tungsten
The U.S. has not commercially mined tungsten since 2015, according to official records. But this year, one of the world’s largest mines for the metal is moving close to resuming production in South Korea.
Canada-based Almonty Industries said last week it came one step closer to fully reopening the Sangdong mine and processing plant with the installation of grinding equipment. The mine, more than 10 hours east of Seoul by bus, closed in 1994.
Almonty aims to restore Sangdong to around 50% of its potential output by summer 2025, CEO Lewis Black told CNBC last month, after a ceremony that highlighted cooperation with the local government.
He noted that 90% of South Korea’s tungsten comes from China, and that Chinese companies might invest in other businesses to maintain their market share indirectly.
Jeong Kwang-yeol, the vice governor for economic affairs in Gangwon where Sangdong is located, said the region is willing to offer foreign investors incentives as he hopes the mine can become an anchor for other industrial companies to expand in the region. He cited estimates that the first phase of the mine would create 250 jobs and 1,500 indirect positions.
Almonty currently operates a tungsten mine in Portugal. In 2015, the company completed an acquisition that gave it the mining rights to Sangdong, and in 2021 it obtained $75.1 million for project financing from German state bank KfW IPEX-Bank. Almonty said overall investment in Sangdong so far has exceeded $130 million.
“In the medium-term, the U.S. will need to rely on friendshoring” for tungsten, said Gracelin Baskaran, director of the critical minerals security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She noted that Almonty has committed 45% of the South Korea Sangdong mine to the U.S. through a long-term supply contract.
Several members of the U.S. Geological Survey, a government agency which analyzes the availability of natural resources, visited Sangdong earlier this year to assess its capacity. China was the largest source of U.S. tungsten imports in June at 45%, according to the agency.
Demand for tungsten in and outside China is expected to rise, keeping tungsten prices elevated in the near term, said Emre Uzun, ferro-alloys and steel analyst at Fastmarkets. But starting late next year, he expects increased non-China supply to help stabilize raw tungsten prices.
“Outside China, demand will also rise, but supply is expected to grow when operations expand and projects progress,” he said, pointing to the Sangdong mine and tungsten projects in Kazakhstan, Australia and Spain.
U.S. tungsten deposits
Despite the lack of tungsten production in the United States, the U.S. Geological Survey has identified around 100 sites in 12 U.S. states with significant amounts of the metal: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas, Utah and Washington.
In Idaho, roughly 4 hours away from Boise, a small Canadian company called Demesne Resources plans in coming days to close an eight-year deal worth $5.8 million to acquire the IMA tungsten mine, CEO Murray Nye said on Tuesday. He expects the mine could begin production by spring.
Nye said decades of historical records indicate the mine has significant quantities of tungsten, silver and molybdenum, a metal often used to strengthen others. That, he said, has the makings of what he expects to be a “nice, profitable mine.”
Finance
Buffett denies social media rumors after Trump shares wild claim that investor backs president crashing market
Warren Buffett went on the record Friday to deny social media posts after President Donald Trump shared on Truth Social a fan video that claimed the president is tanking the stock market on purpose with the endorsement of the legendary investor.
Trump on Friday shared an outlandish social media video that defends his recent policy decisions by arguing he is deliberately taking down the market as a strategic play to force lower interest and mortgage rates.
“Trump is crashing the stock market by 20% this month, but he’s doing it on purpose,” alleged the video, which Trump posted on his Truth Social account.
The video’s narrator then falsely states, “And this is why Warren Buffett just said, ‘Trump is making the best economic moves he’s seen in over 50 years.'”
The president shared a link to an X post from the account @AmericaPapaBear, a self-described “Trumper to the end.” The X post itself appears to be a repost of a weeks-old TikTok video from user @wnnsa11. The video has been shared more than 2,000 times on Truth Social and nearly 10,000 times on X.
Buffett, 94, didn’t single out any specific posts, but his conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway outright rejected all comments claimed to be made by him.
“There are reports currently circulating on social media (including Twitter, Facebook and Tik Tok) regarding comments allegedly made by Warren E. Buffett. All such reports are false,” the company said in a statement Friday.
CNBC’s Becky Quick spoke to Buffett Friday about this statement and he said he wanted to knock down misinformation in an age where false rumors can be blasted around instantaneously. Buffett told Quick that he won’t make any commentary related to the markets, the economy or tariffs between now and Berkshire’s annual meeting on May 3.
‘A tax on goods’
While Buffett hasn’t spoken about this week’s imposition of sweeping tariffs from the Trump administration, his view on such things has pretty much always been negative. Just in March, the Berkshire CEO and chairman called tariffs “an act of war, to some degree.”
“Over time, they are a tax on goods. I mean, the tooth fairy doesn’t pay ’em!” Buffett said in the news interview with a laugh. “And then what? You always have to ask that question in economics. You always say, ‘And then what?'”
During Trump’s first term, Buffett opined at length in 2018 and 2019 about the trade conflicts that erupted, warning that the Republican’s aggressive moves could cause negative consequences globally.
“If we actually have a trade war, it will be bad for the whole world … everything intersects in the world,” Buffett said in a CNBC interview in 2019. “A world that adjusts to something very close to free trade … more people will live better than in a world with significant tariffs and shifting tariffs over time.”
Buffett has been in a defensive mode over the past year as he rapidly dumped stocks and raised a record amount of cash exceeding $300 billion. His conglomerate has a big U.S. focus and has large businesses in insurance, railroads, manufacturing, energy and retail.
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