Why should the Sangdong tungsten mine, which has been closed for nearly 30 years, be restarted?
In terms of application, tungsten material is an important strategic metal, which is widely used in core industrial fields such as automobile, ship, military industry, medical treatment, national defense, construction, metallurgy, electronics, aerospace, and aviation. It can be used to manufacture automobile engine crankshafts, shell cores, medical shields, electronic packaging material, rocket engine nozzle, and so on.
In recent years, with the rise of the "Green Economy", industries such as new energy vehicles, infrastructure, and 3C electronics have more and more demand for tungsten materials, which leads to the shock and rise of tungsten price. According to the data of China Tungsten online news network, recently, the price of domestic wolframite concentrate is about 115000 yuan/ton, tungsten powder is about 273 yuan/kg, and tungsten treaty is 325 yuan/kg.
From the supply side, due to the continuous spread of the global epidemic and the war between Russia and Ukraine this year, there are frequent problems in the supply chain of some key raw materials such as cobalt and nickel, which has sounded an alarm to the tungsten industry, and the importance of tungsten has been raised again. it is worth mentioning that the United States, Japan, the European Union, and China have included tungsten in the list of key minerals; At present, South Korea is the country with the largest per capita tungsten consumption in the world, but more than 95% of its tungsten resources depend on China's imports.
According to the data of the U.S. Geological Survey, by the end of 2021, the world's tungsten resource reserves were 3.7 million tons, of which China's tungsten reserves were 1.9 million tons, ranking first; Russia has 400000 tons of tungsten reserves, ranking second. In terms of output, the world's Tungsten output was 79000 tons in 2021, of which China ranked first with 66000 tons; Vietnam has 4500 tons, ranking second; Russia has 2400 tons, ranking third.
From the perspective of the importance and supply chain of metal tungsten materials, it is not difficult to understand the restart of the Sangdong tungsten mine. According to Almonty's prediction, after the completion of the Sangdong tungsten project, its production capacity will account for one-tenth of the total global tungsten supply, which will alleviate the tight supply of tungsten resources to a certain extent.
