Flight control system

Tungsten alloy weights are usually used to optimize the flight control performance, such as rudder, elevator and ailerons, have a greater advantage than other traditional materials such as steel or lead.

Rotor blades

Helicopter rotor blades require the best balance. Tungsten alloy can be installed in an imbalance in the location of a single leaf in the manufacturing process, such as in helicopter balancer.

Propeller

Tungsten alloy weights can be loaded fail-safe device, in order to avoid the problem of speeding.

Inertial system

Tungsten alloy can be loaded to control the rotation of the gyro flywheel to store kinetic energy. Tungsten alloy used in this gyroscope has two main purposes:

1) To adjust the center of gravity of the triangle.

2) To adjust the beam of the laser oscillation frequency.


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Mitsubishi Materials Corp. reported an increase of 16% in consolidated group net sales for the first quarter of its new financial year (2013/2014) ended June 30 to Yen 423 billion ($4.4 billion). There were reported increases in sales for cemented carbide tools as a direct result of the depreciation of the Yen, but sales of PM parts decreased due to the end of eco-car government subsidies in Japan.

This is largely due to the 13.5% rise in cement sales and a 13.8% rise in sales of the metals division. MMCs ‘Advanced Materials & Tools’ division, which includes Diamet Corp, Mitsubishi Materials Tools Co., Ltd. and MMC Superalloy Corp, continued in negative territory in the quarter with a 1.7% decrease in sales to Yen 36 billion ($369 million). However, operating profit for the Advanced Materials & Tools division increased by 15.1%.  Anyway, sales for cemented carbide were increased as a result of this depreciation.


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Happy Creek Minerals Ltd. is pleased to announce preliminary results from the first drill hole of the 2013 program on its 100% owned, 165 square kilometre Fox tungsten property. The Fox property is located approximately 75 km northeast of 100 Mile House, in the south-central Cariboo region of British Columbia, Canada.

At the RC prospect, drill hole F13-01 is a step out approximately 40.0 metres west of F12-17 (20 metres of 0.63% tungsten trioxide (W03). F13-01 is a vertical hole that was lost at a depth of 30.4 metres while in the mineralized zone due to a drilling problem. The favorable geology consists of calc-silicate and skarn which was intersected from surface, with trace tungsten beginning from 8.0 metres. Starting at 26.8 metres the hole intersected 2.72 metres grading 2.01% tungsten trioxide that is thought to be near true thickness. Other values in this interval include 0.27% zinc, 1.85 g/t silver, 0.09 g/t gold and 1.63 g/t indium. This drill site was subsequently repeated and completed through the favourable horizon and results are pending.

On the Fox property, positive values of tungsten occur in rock, stream sediment, soil and drill core in a 10 km by 3 km area. Drilling by the Company in 2007 at the Nightcrawler zone outlined positive tungsten values in multiple horizons over an area 1.5 km by 500 metres in dimension. Four kilometres to the north, four outcropping mineralized zones are named from south to north the 708, BN, RC (Ridley Creek) and BK prospects. These prospects are within a favorable target horizon (calc-silicate or skarn) spanning a distance of three kilometres and a lateral extent thought to be greater than one kilometre.

A review of drill results from the Fox property to date identified 23 intervals averaging 3.1 metres and 2.41 % tungsten trioxide that comprise a portion of the favourable horizon thickness. Drill highlights from 2011 and 2012 at the RC prospect include 7.35 metres of 1.22% tungsten trioxide, 19.4 metres of 0.82% tungsten trioxide, 11.0 metres of 0.80% tungsten trioxide, 20.0 metres of 0.63% tungsten trioxide and 24.7 metres of 0.68% tungsten trioxide. One kilometer south of the RC prospect, drilling at the BN prospect returned three intervals in hole F12-27: 4.1 metres of 1.78% tungsten trioxide, 14.8 metres of 4.0% tungsten trioxide and 24.0 metres of 0.79% tungsten trioxide including 5.8 metres of 2.01% tungsten trioxide. One kilometre north of the RC prospect, drilling at the BK prospect returned 5.0 metres of 0.68% tungsten trioxide. (Refer to Press Release dated November 19, 2012).

A grade of 2.4% tungsten trioxide contains 24.0 kg W03 per tonne of rock, and tungsten prices are around US$35.0/kg W03 in concentrates and US$42.0/kg W03 as upgraded APT (ammonium paratungstate) (1).

Tungsten is regarded as a strategic and critical metal for industrialized countries. Over 50% is used in cemented tungsten carbide to make cutting tools for the construction, metalworking, mining, oil and gas drilling industries. The balance is used for heavy alloy in applications requiring high temperature stability and density in electronic components, super-alloys, wear-resistant alloys and chemicals for various applications. Tungsten is being used and evaluated as a more effective radiation shield than lead, requiring 1/10th the thickness of lead (2). Zinc and indium also occur with tungsten at the Fox property. Indium is a rare metal used in liquid crystal applications such as touch screens and prices have risen to over US$550/kg ($5.50/gram).

The proximity to infrastructure, near surface setting, large scale and presence of high grade tungsten are thought to make the Fox property a unique and attractive new discovery in the global tungsten sector.


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We have been watching tungsten prices rise, pull back and rise again.

We had assumed that the market was supported by China, the dominant tungsten producer and by a forecast pullback in production from CanTung the world’s larger tungsten mines.

But tungsten prices may also indicate a return of industrial confidence and economic growth within some key manufacturing economies.

Tungsten is principally used for bits for cutting tools which are mainly used in manufacturing and heavy industry.

Manufacturers need to supply machines with tungsten carbide cutting tools as a first step before ramping up industrial production ahead of new forecast demand.

In past cycles new Chinese demand has buried the market and forced prices lower but with the market seemingly in balance we assume that new industrial demand is lifting prices.

It is possible that the US DLA and other strategic stockpile agencies are also part of the demand equation with tungsten marked as a critical metal by the major superpowers.

There are a number of new tungsten producers listed in Canada, the UK and Australia which are worth looking at.  We would avoid Malaga as its Pasto Bueno tungsten mine is now on care and maintenance.

There are no Tungsten ETFs so there is no potential for ETF sales to distort the market.


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3D printing with metals is not new. But the range of metals that can be 3D printed is increasing quickly. We recently told you about a laboratory breakthrough that allows 3D printing of liquid metal structures at room temperature, something that makes many readers think of the film, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Closer to immediate and useful reality, industrial 3D printer supplier ExOne has added iron infiltrated with bronze, and bonded tungsten, to the range of metal and ceramic powders that can be used with its multi-material M-Flex machines.

One of the main reasons the company has seen demand for using iron to 3D print parts instead of its existing stainless steel is its lower cost, Rick Lucas, ExOne’s CTO, told Design News in an interview. Iron costs about 25 percent as much as stainless steel. The cost ratio of materials to total part cost also depends on part size: When making parts smaller than the size of the human hand, materials cost is only about 10 to 15 percent of total part cost.

But as parts get larger, materials can be more than 30 percent of the cost. "That's significant," Lucas told us. "You won't find stainless steel in a lot of industrial applications like automotive parts, machine tools, heavy equipment, and support structures. That's where iron is needed, for both cost and strength." Instead, the main use for stainless parts now by ExOne's customers is impellers and abrasive-type pumping applications.

To develop bonded tungsten for 3D printing, ExOne collaborated with a contract design and manufacturing company called rapid prototype + manufacturing (rp+m). rp+m provides rapid prototyping, additive manufacturing, rapid manufacturing, and 3D printing and scanning in-house. In this project, the two companies focused on the design of 3D-printed products for use in protecting people and their environments from ionizing radiation. Along with its partner, Radiation Protection Technologies, rp+m produces these bonded tungsten products as bundled solutions that replace lead in medical imaging and aerospace.

ExOne is also offering two new binders, sodium silicate and phenolic, as alternatives to furan. Phenolic binder is used with ceramic sand for 3D printing molds and cores, used in the sand molding and casting industry. "Depending on the shape and geometry of the part, you may need something stronger than furan," said Lucas. Phenolic creates a higher strength mold or core, allows higher heat alloys to be cast, and reduces the amount of expansion of the mold or core, improving casting quality. Customers in the hydraulic equipment, heavy equipment, and pump industries, as well as aviation and automotive, requested this new binder material. The sodium silicate binder is a greener alternative to furan, reducing fumes and gas during casting.

All of ExOne's 3D printers, including M-Flex, employ a print head that distributes the binder via jetting it into beds of specially formulated materials. The M-Flex build chamber measures 400 mm x 250 mm x 250 mm (15.7 inch x 9.8 inch x 9.8 inch), and achieves speeds of up to 30 seconds per layer. It's designed for manufacturing either short runs or prototypes of metal parts.

Currently available materials for the M-Flex include silica sand, ceramic sand, stainless steel, glass, copper, iron, and tungsten. The goal is to make at least one new material class available every six months, Lucas told us.

The company's internal Material Applications Laboratory is currently working on several other materials in different stages of development. These include alumina, silicon carbide, chromite, titanium, graphite, zirconia, inconel, aluminum, tool steel, and magnesium. "We designed the M-Flex to print multiple materials, as well as let users change settings to optimize them for their specific needs," said Lucas.


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TMR: What are the ways investors can get exposure to the tungsten market? Are there ways to get exposure through refiners or specialty chemical makers? Is there any practical way to buy the physical commodity?

MS: Investment in mining companies is the only practical way to access this market right now. Tungsten is one commodity that’s mostly traded between producers and consumers. Historically, governments would enter the market and stockpile, but as an individual investor, you can’t really go out and easily buy a couple of tons of tungsten and warehouse it. That would be far outside normal market behavior.

If tungsten prices do take off, as I expect they will, the beneficiaries should be the producers. One of the larger current producers outside of China is North American Tungsten. Its current production comes from the Cantung mine, which hasn’t got much life left in it. The company has additional projects, like Mactung, that may be able to come on-line. A potential investor would need to examine each project closely.

In evaluating projects, investors have lots of variables to consider. What are comparable projects? What are the size, grade, operating costs and all the other details that need to be evaluated? Most importantly—what’s the funding situation? It is not always clear as to why some projects advance and others don’t. Mining is a risky business, but that is why there are rewards when it works out.


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TMR: In their yearly commodity summary for tungsten, the U.S.G.S. states that there are many tungsten mines throughout the world that are in various stages of coming on-line. Many of them are restarts of old mines. Will new mine supply make it to production given the difficulty of financing mining projects?

MS: You hit the nail on the head with financing. Securing funding is the biggest hurdle between projects and production at the moment. We’ve had many financial events over the past few years that have hurt confidence for lending. It’s not unique to the tungsten market—it’s pretty much universal. Tight lending is a macro condition that is working its way all the way down the food chain.

If you look at the fundamental situation, the tungsten market is going to need new production from somewhere. The Chinese aren’t pumping out extra tungsten. In fact, if anything they’re exporting less and less tungsten, particularly the intermediate and unrefined products. Demand in 2012 was level or down because of the problems in Europe. This year, I would expect demand to pick up a little bit.

The current producers of tungsten don’t have the capacity to materially increase production. The biggest mine outside of China, the Cantung mine in Canada, which is owned by North American Tungsten Corp. Ltd. (NTC:TSX), is producing at close to capacity and has only two or three years of reserves—and that’s a generous estimate. Most of the other mines, including a couple of mines in Europe, are producing close to capacity, so they don’t have much leeway. If demand starts to pick up, new projects or restarts will be needed to fill the gap.

In the last couple of years, the only major project that’s started production is the Nui Phao project in Vietnam, owned by Masan Group (private). It’s a Vietnamese company. That project has been through a number of hands and has been in development for quite a long time. At least $500 million ($500M) has been spent on the project. It is somewhat unique in that it is a polymetallic deposit. The process flow sheet is fairly complicated and getting the entire plant up and running will take some time. Other new producers include a smaller-scale operation in Australia and Almonty Industries Inc.’s (AII:TSX.V) Los Santos mine in Spain. These are not particularly large projects, with annual production at less than 1,000 tons of tungsten each.

The largest projects in the tungsten market are up to $500M in size. That is small compared to world-class gold or copper projects. But it is large for this market, and far larger than many of the smaller mining companies can pull off. In that sense, the tungsten market falls between large-scale and small-scale mining. And there might be an opportunity in that space. You could say that the tungsten market “falls between two stools.”

In the context of an approximately 80,000-ton annual market with 3% growth, you need 2,400 tons of additional tungsten metal per year in supply, and with 5% growth you need 4,000 tons. That’s one new big tungsten project per year. It is difficult to see where that supply could come from. In the current market, miners can’t get the financing needed to take projects from a bankable feasibility study to construction. It’s a big problem.

The only other apparently fully funded project that I know of is the Hemerdon project in the U.K., which is owned by Wolf Minerals (WLF:ASX). That project is beginning construction now, but won’t be in production until late 2014 at the earliest. There aren’t any other significant projects that will come on-line in less than two years. Most of the larger projects have at least a two-year construction phase, but most of those projects aren’t fully funded yet. The fundamentals in the tungsten market are good. Price projections for tungsten are good. The problem is getting the funding. Add it all together and it appears that the tungsten market is storing up trouble. For many reasons, the tungsten market isn’t well understood by the investment community. The problem is that whoever’s looking to fund a project is waiting for tungsten prices to go crazy and then they’ll get involved. If an investor waits until then, the timing is just not right.


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TMR: Part of the REE narrative is the limited ability to substitute other materials in specific applications. Are consumers of tungsten required to use tungsten for their particular applications?

MS: Pretty much. In most current applications, there aren’t any viable substitutes for tungsten. Demand for tungsten is therefore relatively inelastic to price changes. Five years ago, when prices started to increase, demand didn’t drop. In fact, demand was still growing at the time. Consumers require tungsten and are willing to pay for it. There’s no real substitute.

TMR: How do you track the pricing trends in the various global tungsten markets?

MS: One feature of tungsten, as with REEs, is there’s no terminal market. There’s no exchange where you can pull up the tungsten price like you can do with copper, gold or wheat. You’re relying on price discovery publications like Metal Bulletin, Metal Pages and Metals Weekly. Depending where they’re published, they give you an idea of regional pricing. Metals Weekly is a U.S. publication, so it tends to focus on U.S. prices. Metal Bulletin is based in Europe. Metal Pages has a very strong Chinese office so it can watch Chinese prices closely.

Even with those sources, it is still difficult to get exact prices for materials due to the nature of the contracts. But over time, you can see trends developing. Recently, because the European market has been weak, European tungsten prices have lagged behind China, where the tungsten market is growing quicker. Chinese economic growth is still at 7–8%, so they’re in a different part of the cycle than Europe, which has been a bit of a disaster area. But European prices are now starting to catch up and are similar to the Chinese export prices at the moment. Due to the nature of the market, pricing differentials do pop up in different regions from time to time.

TMR: Are there large players that can set prices across regional tungsten markets?

MS: Not really. I suppose if you’re looking at the price for tungsten, your first port of call is China because it accounts for so much of the market. The Chinese export market sets the world price and that’s a price you can buy Chinese tungsten—if it’s available. In the U.S., companies such as Global Tungsten Powders and Kennametal Inc. are quite big purchasers. In Europe, major consumers could include companies like H.C. Starck and Sandvik, for example. Whether they’re big enough to set prices, I don’t know.

Tungsten tends to be produced and sold to the consumer on relatively longer-term contracts, so spot business is less important. People tend to form their contracts based on the Metal Bulletin or Metal Pages price or whichever price source they feel most comfortable with. The contract will be for a certain amount of tonnage over a certain period of time and it could be a premium or a discount to the Metal Bulletin published price, depending on grade and quality.

TMR: How is tungsten price performance right now?

MS: The tungsten market is performing pretty well when you compare it to other minor metals—over both short and longer-term time horizons. Tungsten prices have been increasing for about five months in a row now. [See the chart below.]

The supply side will drive the tungsten price in the near future. China’s not going to change its strategic approach to natural resources management. The whole export license and export quota system will remain in place. Effectively, you’ll find less and less intermediate tungsten available for export from China. They’ll be shipping out more finished products whether it’s tungsten carbide powders, drill bits or cutting tools. The good news is that this presents an opportunity for tungsten mine projects.


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Tungsten just doesn’t have the sex appeal that made investors fall for the rare earth story. But maybe that’s its trump card, considering the boom/bust cycle that swept rare earths didn’t touch tungsten’s slow, steady price increases. Analyst Mark Seddon of Tungsten Market Research has long been watching the often ignored metal, and asserts that tungsten is a harder sell, but a better buy for investors. In this The Metals Report interview, Seddon outlines tungsten’s finer points and suggests miners are poised to reap rewards.

The Metals Report: Mark, what is the supply situation with tungsten?

Mark Seddon: China accounts for approximately 80% of global tungsten supply, so it’s the clear dominant player when it comes to both tungsten and rare earth elements (REEs), both of which are on most national lists of strategic or critical materials. The Chinese government has recently taken an active role in managing supply for a broad range of strategic metals, including tungsten, through export quotas, mining quotas and licensing systems. These actions have reduced the availability of ores, concentrates and intermediate products available for export. China’s goal is to add value to their natural resources by serving its own domestic markets rather than export these materials—and refining and manufacturing jobs along with it. That dynamic applies to both tungsten and REEs.

Another similarity is the fairly significant price rises in both markets. But while REE price hikes have been labeled a bubble, that’s not the case with tungsten, simply because there has not been a lot of interest from the investment community. It is possible that a bubble in tungsten will happen in the future as investors see prices for products rising and that feeds a self-reinforcing investment case and increases investor interest. But we are not anywhere near that now.

There are notable differences between the two markets as well. One of the big differences between tungsten and REEs is their applications. Tungsten is a very industrial metal. It’s mainly used as a carbide or “hard metal” in drilling and cutting tools used in heavy industry. Tungsten is not sexy in that sense. It’s a very solid industrial market. This contrasts with REEs, which are used in a lot of newer, high-tech applications that are much easier for the investment community to make into an exciting story.

TMR: So, the tungsten narrative is a little more staid.

MS: Absolutely. Here in the U.K., the national press was running articles about REE production in China and how the Chinese might cut off supplies. The result would be no more wind turbines. That narrative is the type that gets lots of attention. Meanwhile, tungsten is used in industrial applications that people don’t get as excited about. The image of the market is quite different. Another thing to keep in mind is that tungsten is just a single element with a few critical applications, whereas REEs include a number of different elements with many applications.

TMR: How large is the tungsten market?

MS: I evaluate it in terms of volume. The global market is approximately 80,000 tons of tungsten metal content. When looking at supply/demand statistics, it is important to make sure that you are using consistent units. For clarity, I use tungsten metal content (W) rather than WO3 or other intermediaries.

TMR: Is the tungsten market growing?

MS: The largest segment of the market is in cemented carbides or hard metals, which probably accounts for about a quarter of the market. Tungsten demand growth, over time, has consistently outperformed GDP. In the mid- to late eighties, for example, tungsten demand increased up to 8–10% a year when global GDP was growing at between 4–5%. The historical use of tungsten metal in mill products like filaments for light bulbs accounts for around 15% of the market. The demise of the incandescent light bulb is not a major problem for the tungsten market, as tungsten is still used in some of the newer light bulbs.


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The global supply of tungsten has been scarce for years, causing the European Union to categorize it as a “critical raw material.”

China currently has most tungsten reserves  in the world, but notable deposits can also be found throughout Europe. Many companies are exploring the continent in the hope of finding valuable assets to help meet worldwide demand. Tungsten is primarily used for industrial drilling and cutting tools, as well as for electronics and specialized steels.

The United Kingdom

The majority of tungsten reserves in the United Kingdom are in the southwest of England, primarily Western Devon and Cornwall. Both of these locales have long histories of mining, though operations have declined in recent years. There are currently not enough reserves in the area to be reported by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Specialty metals company Wolf Minerals (ASX:WLF) is one of the major companies operating tungsten projects in the United Kingdom. Its primary asset is the Hemerdon mine, which produces tungsten and tin. It is located near the Plymouth in Devin County in the Southwest UK.

Hemerdon has been identified as a “highly economic potential producer of low-cost tungsten,” the company’s website states. Recent research determined it has measured, indicated and inferred resources of 401.4 million tons at 0.13 percent WO3, which is tungsten trioxide.

Spain

There are currently not enough tungsten reserves in Spain to be reported by the U.S. Geological Survey, but the western side of the country is home to the most mining of the metal. Three companies engaged in exploration, development and mining of tungsten assets in Spain are Almonty Industries (TSXV:AII), Ormonde Mining (LSE:ORM) and W Resources (LSE:WRES).


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