This desk has tracked tungsten four times this cycle: scrap drained out of American yards, Kazakh ore financed at Astana, a Nevada resource locked behind a NASA land order, and the tungsten hexafluoride purity chain thinning at the top. Every one described a blockage. On September 1 a credible unblocking arrived with a cost number attached. Look at the calendar before the net present value.

ASX-listed Tungsten Mining published a prefeasibility study for Mt Mulgine in Western Australia which the company says confirms the potential for the world’s largest, lowest cost tungsten development. It intends to reach a definitive feasibility study and final investment decision by the first quarter of 2028, with first production envisioned for the second quarter of 2029 [Mining Weekly, September 1, 2026].

What’s happening

• The base case, eight million tonnes a year of throughput, carries a pre-tax NPV of A$6.8 billion and an IRR of 55 percent should prices average $1,509/t, rising to A$15.5 billion and 113 percent at higher spot prices. Initial capital is A$870 million, with a Stage 2 ramp to sixteen million tonnes a year requiring a further A$420 million. The report does not state the basis for that price, so this desk draws no margin comparison from it.
• Mine life is 21 years, producing up to 12,000 t/y of tungsten trioxide at a C1 cash cost of $53/t and an all-in sustaining cost of $127/t, which the company calls the world’s lowest [Mining Weekly, September 1, 2026].
• Tungsten Mining attributes a structural deficit to Chinese export restrictions, tighter quotas and dependence on imported concentrate, and expects it sustained through 2028 and beyond. Demand grows 3.4 percent compounded, from 154,000 t to 215,000 t in 2035, on defence and manufacturing.
• USGS estimates 2025 world mine production at 85,000 t of tungsten content, China at 67,000 t, and Chinese reserves at 2,500,000 t against a world total published as more than 4,700,000 t [USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries, February 2026]. That is about 79 percent of mine output and about 53 percent of counted reserves, both desk arithmetic.

USGS supplies the conversion that matters: a metric ton unit of tungsten trioxide contains 7.93 kilograms of tungsten. Mt Mulgine’s 12,000 t/y of trioxide is therefore roughly 9,500 t of contained tungsten, about 11 percent of current world output. Desk arithmetic, and a future nameplate against a present total, not a forecast.

Brazil angle

Brazil is not named in the USGS 2026 production table at all, sitting inside “Other countries” at an estimated 2,400 t for 2025. Its tungsten is real but parked. Largo Inc. holds 100 percent of Currais Novos in Rio Grande do Norte, tailings from the historic Barra Verde and Boca de Laje mines, which it operated until 2012 and last assessed economically in 2011. On May 27 Largo said it would evaluate strategic alternatives for Currais Novos and for Northern Dancer in Yukon, including partnerships, sale, spin-out and offtake structures, with Co-Chief Executive Alberto Arias citing unsolicited expressions of interest. Largo set no timetable and said it will not report further unless its board approves a transaction [Largo Inc. via Newsfile, May 27, 2026].

Note the date. That was May, and what followed was balance sheet work: releases titled “Largo Secures US$82.2 Million Debt Restructuring, Extending Maturity to 2030” on August 20 and “Largo TSX Delisting Review Resolved” on August 26 [Largo Inc. via Newsfile, August 20 and August 26, 2026]. Australia’s answer came this week with a capital estimate and a board date. Brazil’s is a 2011 study looking for a counterparty.

US angle

Tungsten has not been mined commercially in the United States since 2015, and net import reliance exceeded 50 percent of apparent consumption every year from 2021 through 2025. Seven US companies can convert concentrates, APT, oxide or scrap into powders and chemicals, which is a midstream, not a mine. China including Hong Kong supplied 26 percent of US imports from 2021 to 2024. Policy then moved hard: Washington raised tariffs to 50 percent on several Chinese tungsten products under section 301(b) at the end of 2024, Beijing imposed export controls on selected items in February 2025, and Rotterdam concentrate ran from $266 to $551 per metric ton unit through 2025 [USGS, February 2026].

The awkward part is where the new tonne showed up. USGS records 2025 world production rising especially from the start of the Boguty deposit in Kazakhstan, zero in 2024 and an estimated 2,400 t in 2025. Central Asia, not North America, despite Defense Production Act Title III awards to projects in Nevada, New Brunswick and Yukon.

China angle

China remained the leading producer, importer and consumer of tungsten concentrates in 2025, and its consumption and imports both increased significantly [USGS, February 2026]. That last clause matters. A country holding roughly four fifths of mine output is importing more feed, the same dependence on imported concentrate that Tungsten Mining names as a deficit driver. The grip is on conversion capacity as much as on ore, and substitution offers little relief: USGS notes that most listed substitutes for cemented tungsten carbides reduce rather than replace the tungsten used.

What it means

Tungsten sits in this desk’s SOV50 sovereignty index rather than in TAI-M. SOV50 printed 122.2 on August 29 against a January 1 base of 100. The placement is right: the honest reading of Mt Mulgine is that the chokepoint has been priced, not relieved.

Two cautions belong on the record. Tungsten Mining’s demand case is defence and manufacturing, not AI, and USGS puts an estimated 60 percent of US consumption in cemented carbide cutting and wear parts, folding electrical and electronic uses into the remainder without breaking out semiconductors. The AI channel runs through chip interconnect and via metallisation, which this desk has covered through the WF6 gas chain, but nothing read this week quantifies it. Second, that metallurgy is in transition: Semiconductor Engineering frames the 10 angstrom node as one that “will usher in new architectures, tooling, and materials” for how fabs build interconnects [Semiconductor Engineering, February 2025, updated July 2025]. A tungsten thesis anchored on chip wiring carries roadmap risk that one anchored on carbide tooling does not.

The calendar is not in doubt. The investment decision is six quarters out and first metal eleven quarters out on this desk’s count. Every quarter until then is supplied by the system that exists, four fifths Chinese at the mine and tighter at the converter. Mt Mulgine is not a bridge over the deficit. It is what the far bank looks like.

What to watch

1. DFS scope, into Q1 2028. Whether Tungsten Mining carries Stage 2 into the definitive study or defers it. Folding the extra A$420 million into the base decision signals confidence in the post-2029 price deck; deferring caps contained output near the 9,500 t desk estimate.
2. A Largo transaction, not a Largo update. The company said it will not report progress absent a board-approved deal, so the only signal is a deal. Watch whether Currais Novos is separated from Northern Dancer, because a Brazilian tailings retreatment is a faster asset than Yukon hard rock.
3. The February 2027 USGS print. This edition carries Rotterdam concentrate at an estimated $380 per dry metric ton unit for 2025 against $252 in 2024, roughly 51 percent higher on desk arithmetic. The next edition is the audited read on whether that held, and on whether China’s 26 percent share of US imports moved under a 50 percent tariff.