Odd Lots · Monday, August 3, 2026
China supplies approximately 80% of the world's tungsten, primarily due to its high-grade geological resources. This dominance creates strategic vulnerabilities for other nations, especially as China has imposed export controls, leading to price volatility and making it difficult to finance tungsten mines outside of China.
“China produces eighty percent of the world's tungsten, and by twenty you were seeing China threatening Japan for instance, over its rare earth supplies, and you could see this was a potential risk even back then and people around the world.”
“China, going back to the turn of the twentieth century, dominated global tungsten supply, and the only time that that's really changed was during a period in the Cold War when Tungstan was basically closed off from the rest of the world. As soon as Chinese tungsten was able to get into the world market. Their minds are the highest grade minds and there is justly more of it.”
“One of the reasons tungsten price is a high is precisely because China imposed export controls just ran about the time President Trump came to office last year. That doesn't mean that exports stop altogether, but it means that if you're dependent on Chinese tungksen exports, which every tungsten consumer is dependent on, you want to get your supplies early before those export controls result in the Chinese government saying no, you can't sell it to them.”