Odd Lots · Monday, August 3, 2026
The absence of a futures market for tungsten makes it difficult for investors to predict future revenues, hindering financing for new mines. Prices can fluctuate dramatically, with one metric ton unit of ammonium para tungstate selling for $300 in 2022 and over $3,000 recently, translating to roughly $400,000 per ton of tungsten.
“Because there's no way of hedging your cost with any mine, you are making capital investments right now for something that might only pay off in years five to ten.”
“Now, if I'm doing that with copper, I can go to the London Metal Exchange or Comics and I can have as many contricts as I want setting the price of copper five years hence, and then I can take that to the bank and say, look, here's my operating costs, here's the value of cover, here's how much I'm going to produce. This is a bankable project, very simple, totally different with tungsten, they're just there. Simply is no futures market in this because it's such a tiny market most of time.”
“So if it's three thousand dollars a griometric ton unit, it's about four hundred thousand dollars for a ton of tungsten.”