Carbide market trends.

Records, then more records

The defining market event of the period was the tungsten benchmark's vertical move. APT opened 2025 around $300 per mtu, crossed $1,100 in January 2026, passed $2,200 by March, and reached roughly $3,185 by May 2026 — about a ninefold increase in twelve months — with Rotterdam assessments running $2,900 to $3,200 into early summer. Ferrotungsten roughly quadrupled over a comparable span. The trigger sequence is well documented: China's February 2025 export licensing, the 6.5 percent mining quota cut, the December 2025 decision to limit tungsten exports to 15 firms for 2026–2027, and February 2026 dual-use export bans. Chinese export volumes fell roughly 40 percent year-on-year, and ex-China supply could not fill the gap. Downstream, the tightness filtered through exactly as textbooks predict: carbide insert list prices rose on the order of 10 to 15 percent by mid-2026, suppliers fell months behind on deliveries, and lead times stretched from the normal 4–6 weeks to 12–20 weeks, with some suppliers declining new orders entirely. The carbide cutting-tool market still grew — about $12.28 billion in 2025 to $13.04 billion in 2026 by one industry estimate — but growth came with friction at every step.

New mines and the long lead time problem

High prices are doing what high prices always do: calling forth new supply. Almonty began production at its South Korean tungsten mine in March 2026, with a Phase 2 expansion targeted for 2027. The United Kingdom committed up to £71 million to restart the Hemerdon mine in Devon. Fireweed Metals advanced a feasibility study at the Mactung project in Canada's Yukon. Early-stage projects are being discussed in Uzbekistan and the United States. But the industry's central warning holds: a new mine takes a decade or more from discovery to production, and new chemical processing capacity takes years to permit and build. Even operating mines face the qualification bottleneck — aerospace and defense toolmakers must test and approve every new powder and grade before it enters production, which delays the moment new supply actually relieves the market. Near-term, the more meaningful supply response has been recycling: tariffs and tight markets have actively encouraged carbide recycling and regional tool manufacturing, pushing more scrap toward the zinc-process and chemical recycling routes that return tungsten to the supply chain in months, not decades.

Governments enter the market

The period's other theme is governments treating tungsten as a strategic material rather than a commodity. The U.S. defense procurement ban on adversary-sourced tungsten takes effect January 1, 2027, with rules reaching upstream to ore and feedstock including recycled material. The Bureau of Industry and Security's August 2026 scrap framework — requiring domestic allocation of tungsten waste and scrap sales — aims to keep secondary tungsten inside the country and build domestic processing capacity, though market participants warn limited domestic refining capacity constrains the near-term effect and some expect pressure from redirected export volumes. The U.S. Defense Logistics Agency issued a request for information on acquiring up to 200 tons of tungsten hard scrap. Analysts project the broader tungsten market roughly doubling from about $5.2 billion in 2025 toward $11 billion-plus by 2035 — an analyst estimate, not a fact, but directionally consistent with everything else. For sellers, the watch list is short: whether China renews its 15-firm export list for 2027, how the U.S. scrap framework's comment period resolves, whether new mines hit their timelines, and how quickly recycling capacity scales. Markets this tight reward the prepared: sorted, documented, verifiable scrap has never been easier to sell well.

Market context only — not a price forecast. Ironcrest quotes every lot against current conditions.

Carbide questions, answered.