Tungsten surges to 12-year high as world enters a new 'black gold' race

Market data as of December shows broad-based price increases across major tungsten products. The price of tungsten ore has climbed nearly 150 per cent since the start of the year, lifting tungsten prices to their highest levels since 2013.

The primary catalyst behind the surge is China, which controls approximately 70-80 per cent of global tungsten production and export capacity. Throughout 2025, China has tightened export restrictions on strategic minerals, including tungsten, by enforcing stricter quotas and licensing regimes.

The resulting supply contraction has rapidly tightened global markets, exposing the extent to which key industrial sectors remain reliant on Chinese output. Analysts increasingly compare today's tungsten market to historic oil markets, where highly concentrated supply rendered prices acutely sensitive to geopolitical and policy decisions.

Structural demand

On the demand side, tungsten consumption is rising steadily and is expected to remain structurally strong. Tungsten is essential to defence systems, renewable energy infrastructure, semiconductors, photovoltaics, precision tooling, and advanced hard materials.

Unlike cyclical commodities, demand from these sectors is highly resilient and less vulnerable to short-term economic fluctuations. At the same time, the development of new tungsten mines remains constrained by high capital intensity, long lead times, and tightening environmental standards.

As a result, many analysts believe the tungsten market has entered a prolonged period of structural undersupply, likely sustaining a materially higher price environment for years to come.

In this context, tungsten is increasingly referred to as the “black gold” of the modern economy. If oil powered the industrial expansion of the 20th century, tungsten underpins the technologies shaping the 21st, from defence and clean energy to semiconductors and advanced manufacturing.

The sharp rise in tungsten prices reflects a broader revaluation of strategic minerals, where supply chain security, geopolitical resilience, and resource sovereignty now rival traditional supply and demand fundamentals in determining value.

Vietnam's emerging strategic advantage

As major economies move to diversify supply chains and reduce reliance on China, countries with tungsten dependence resources and downstream capabilities outside China are gaining strategic importance. Vietnam is among a small group of nations that combine meaningful reserves with industrial-scale mining and processing capacity.

Vietnam's tungsten resources are largely concentrated at the Nui Phao tungsten gomtallic mine in Thai Nguyen province, one of the world's largest tungsten mines outside China, operated by Masan High-Tech Materials, a member of Masan Group. The operation extends well beyond ore extraction, with significant investments in downstream processing, producing ammonium paratungstate, tungsten oxides, and other advanced materials supplied to global markets.

Given constrained global supply and rising demand, tungsten prices are expected to remain elevated over the medium term, reinforcing its role as a strategic input to the high-tech economy. As global supply chains are reconfigured to reduce concentration risk, countries with secure resources and advanced processing capabilities are set to increase geopolitical and economic relevance.

For Vietnam, this moment represents more than a commodity cycle, it is an opportunity to secure a lasting position in the world's emerging black gold race.

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