Tungsten Market Evolution and Key Applications

Initially a niche material for incandescent filaments, tungsten’s role expanded rapidly after the 1927 development of tungsten-carbide hardmetals, and its strategic value surged in World War II through armour-piercing projectiles and high-speed cutting tools. Over the past several decades, leadership in the global tungsten market shifted from Western nations to China as manufacturing globalised and environmental regulations tightened, making China the dominant force in the industry.

Global tungsten reserves distribution in 2024 [left]. Global tungsten production distribution in 2024 [right].

Today tungsten is regarded as a highly strategic critical mineral for defence, with primary value delivered through alloyed and composite forms. Tungsten carbide in cemented carbides is the largest end use, providing cutting, drilling, and wear-resistant tooling across manufacturing and mining. Additional applications include alloy steels for high-temperature machining, superalloys for jet engines and gas turbines, and high-density alloys for penetrators, radiation shielding, and counterweights. Beyond these, uses span energy, aerospace, automotive, medical, and electronics, including silicon-wafer cutting wires, high-voltage electrodes, and filament lamps. Consequently, any credible tungsten market analysis must link end-use growth to the tungsten supply chain and recognise how these applications shape the broader tungsten market.

Supply Chain Overview: China’s Central Role

Global mine production reached about 81,452 metric tons in 2024, up from 79,500 tons in 2023. In any tungsten market analysis, the headline is China’s centrality: it supplies roughly 83 percent of primary output and holds the largest reserves, while mining quotas for early 2025 were cut to 58,000 tons of 65 percent WO₃ concentrate. These policies shape the tungsten supply chain by tightening upstream feed and amplifying price moves at the intermediate stage where China dominates APT and oxide conversion as well as primary refining. Meanwhile, new projects in Kazakhstan, Australia, and South Korea are progressing, although long construction timelines limit near-term additions. The European APT benchmark reaching a 12-year high in mid-2025 underscores structural tightness in the tungsten market, with more than half of China’s refined output absorbed domestically and the balance exported to regions lacking refining capacity.

Tracing the tungsten value chain at an asset-level.

China’s Upstream Constraints, Rising Consumption, and Project Pipeline

China’s tungsten sector is shaped by provincial geology and policy. Reserves are concentrated in Jiangxi, Hunan, and Henan, and reporting often diverges because domestic statistics use a 65 percent WO₃ basis (51.5 percent W) while USGS reports metal content, which complicates planning across the tungsten supply chain. Ore grades have fallen from about 0.42 percent in 2004 to 0.28 percent in 2020, so authorities manage output via quotas, consolidation, and anti-illegal-mining campaigns, although allocation inefficiencies and over-extraction persist.

On the growth side, very large deposits such as Zhuxi and Dahutang, plus a pipeline that could add about 32 kilotonnes of WO₃ per year by 2027, will expand capacity, yet near-term availability remains governed by quota policy. Meanwhile, consumption of Chinese tungsten is rising and already absorbs more than half of refined output in machining, automotive, electronics, energy, and defence, which tightens the exportable surplus and shapes pricing in the tungsten market. For a rigorous tungsten market analysis, these demand and policy interactions are the critical variables.

China tungsten mine production reached peak in 2021, but production has been curtailed by reduced production quotas [left]. Changes to the Chinese H1 production quotas by province (65% tungsten concentrate) [right].