Will Tungsten be the Next Metal to Increase Prices?

According to recent media reports: Zhao Dongchen, chief analyst of ICBC International's raw materials industry, said that after Trump imposed tariffs and imposed trade sanctions on Rusal, the price of aluminum on the London Metal Exchange rose to a seven-year high. He believes: "In addition to aluminum, the next metal that may rise is tungsten."

Zhao Dongchen said that if trade frictions escalate, China may impose anti-sanctions against the United States in the field of tungsten resources. "If China raises tariffs on tungsten resources, lowers quotas or even stops exports, it will bring about a sharp rise in the price of international tungsten. For the United States, its domestic cemented carbide production will have a disruptive blow to its downstream industries. The field will have serious negative effects.

According to the China Tungsten Online, at present, the US military industry, the automotive industry, the aerospace industry and the semiconductor industry require a large amount of tungsten. Excluding the portion of scrap tungsten recovery (30%), China supplies almost all of the tungsten demand in the US industry. It can also be said that, like rare earths, the United States relies on China's tungsten. Even though some of its tungsten products are from the countries of the third-party manufacturers, the original origin is still China.

The application of tungsten in the United States is mainly in the deep processing of the tungsten processing industry chain, such as high-end carbide tools, missiles, aircraft, new energy industry, semiconductor industry and so on. Its main tungsten raw materials come from China's primary tungsten intermediate products. At the end of the last century, China has basically stopped exporting tungsten concentrates and mainly exported tungsten intermediate products such as ammonium paratungstate, ammonium metatungstate, sodium tungstate, tungsten powder, tungsten iron and hard alloy primary blanks. Of course, this is not a boastful progress. After all, the tungsten smelting stage of these products is the most polluting stage in the manufacture of tungsten products.

It is understood that after the price increase of tungsten ore, the most nervous in the world is the United Kingdom and the United States. In the United Kingdom, tungsten was listed as a key metal last year, and Trump also listed tungsten as one of 35 key minerals that must be self-sufficient in March this year. What is even more scary for Americans is that the main mining countries of tungsten are their The biggest competitors considered - China and Russia. It can be said that the strategic importance of tungsten is no less than that of rare earth. The United States is the world's largest consumer of tungsten resources, except China. Its pillar industries, cars and arms are inseparable from tungsten. Even though North America has 14% of the world's tungsten reserves (5% of the US, 9% of Canada), there are also mines to operate. But for now, it’s all a drop in the bucket.

Recently, U.S. Treasury Secretary Mchin will visit China, and the trade between China and the United States will be broken or even more incompetent. Most people prefer the latter. However, the author believes that even if the Sino-US trade war has eased, the pattern of competition between China and the United States has already taken shape. As a rising star, China will face more obstacles and obstacles set by the developed countries. So any future initiatives by Trump and its Americans are likely to affect the price of tungsten, but in the final analysis, the most critical long-term factor affecting tungsten prices is not the Sino-US trade war, but the national strategic demand and cost, tungsten is now Still a metal whose price is underestimated.

Guided by the policy of China's manufacturing 2025, in the future, China's determined new pillar industries need to use a large number of important minerals such as tungsten and rare earth. The situation of shortage of supply will be formed, with or without mining, and tungsten and rare earth are all in China. China's tungsten should be given priority to meet its own needs. Americans dare to sanction Russia's aluminum exports, but instead turn to the fear that China will limit exports of tungsten and rare earths. Based on this, most people in the industry believe that the price of tungsten and tungsten products will rise in a certain period of time in the future. (China Tungsten Online: Weiping)

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