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简体中文 Tungsten carbide price fluctuation dominates the whole tungsten industrial chain in 2026. As the core raw material for cemented carbide and CNC cutting tools, tungsten carbide is a strategic metal under national supervision. In the first half of 2026, tungsten carbide price changed sharply and deviated from real industrial supply and demand. It has become a trading product affected by capital, national policies and downstream demand.
Based on the latest market data, this paper analyzes its price fluctuation causes, sorts out industrial difficulties, and puts forward practical development strategies for downstream manufacturing enterprises.
Half-year Price Trend of Tungsten Carbide
The tungsten carbide market has experienced three obvious stages in the first half of 2026. Its sharp price change has no connection with real terminal order demand, and all downstream processing enterprises suffer passive profit losses.
Stage 1: Capital speculation pushes up price bubble (January-March)
Driven by rising price of 65% wolframite concentrate and APT, domestic tungsten carbide powder rose from 1080 RMB/kg to a record high of 2400 RMB/kg, with a growth rate of 122% within two months. This price surge was fueled by capital speculation on tungsten resource scarcity. Most cemented carbide enterprises purchased raw materials at high prices for basic production, which pushed up overall manufacturing costs greatly.
Stage 2: Policy intervention eliminates market bubble (April-May)
Continuous raw material price hike doubled production cost of downstream factories. Small and medium-sized cemented carbide enterprises faced production suspension and order reduction, which damaged domestic real manufacturing development. Industrial regulators issued guidance to stabilize the industrial chain. Large smelting enterprises released spot goods and adjusted long-term supply quotas, while speculative capital took profits and withdrew from the market. By May 29, tungsten carbide price dropped to 1000 RMB/kg, nearly halved in two months. Enterprises holding high-price inventory suffered inventory depreciation and economic losses.
Stage 3: Short-term price rebound driven by capital re-entry (Early June to present)
Tungsten raw material price hit bottom with solid cost support in late May, and downstream enterprises ran out of raw material inventory. Speculative capital re-entered the market during policy adjustment gap. In the first five trading days of June, tungsten powder price rose from 1000 RMB/kg to 1200 RMB/kg, driving synchronous growth of tungsten carbide price. However, downstream end users refused to accept premium raw materials. There is a big gap between quoted price and actual transaction volume. Most market participants choose to wait and see before the Dragon Boat Festival, and the whole market keeps stable with weak trading activity.
Three Core Forces Affecting Tungsten Carbide Pricing
In past years, tungsten carbide price was decided by mining output, factory capacity and downstream order volume. Real industrial supply and demand controlled market pricing. The rule changed completely in 2026. Financial capital takes the dominant pricing right, while supply-demand relation only serves as speculation background. Three major factors jointly lead to tungsten carbide price fluctuation.
National Industrial Policy
Tungsten is a non-renewable strategic metal. Chinese authorities implement annual mining quota control on tungsten ore, which sets a fixed upper limit of primary tungsten supply. Different from copper and aluminum with huge market scale, tungsten carbide industry has small trading volume, so limited capital can easily affect spot price. Geopolitical risks, export control policies and overseas mine resumption progress can easily raise market bullish sentiment, making tungsten carbide a preferred speculation product for capital funds.
Financial Capital Operation
Traditional real industries have low investment return at present. Large idle capital seeks safe and tradable commodities, and takes tungsten carbide as financial trading chips. Capital raised raw material price in Q1 to gain profits and test regulatory tolerance. Industrial policies cooled down market speculation in Q2 to return raw material price to reasonable range. Capital made short-term arbitrage in early June during policy blank period. High price fluctuation risk will remain in the follow-up tungsten market.
Weak purchasing willingness of downstream enterprises
After two rounds of sharp price ups and downs, downstream enterprises cancel bulk stock-up plans. They adopt order-based purchasing mode to avoid raw material price risk. Weak downstream purchasing restricts further price increase of tungsten carbide, while high mining and smelting cost stops deep price decline. The whole tungsten carbide market maintains a narrow range oscillation state currently.
Difficulties Facing Current Tungsten Industry
As tungsten carbide becomes financialized, the traditional profit mode of processing fee cannot adapt to the new market rules. The whole industry faces prominent operational problems.
1. Outdated quotation mode brings huge profit risk. Monthly or quarterly fixed quotation cannot adapt to frequent daily price changes, and enterprise order profit will be wiped out by raw material price fluctuation quickly.
2. Small and medium-sized enterprises have poor anti-risk ability. Limited capital makes it impossible for them to adjust inventory following capital trend, and they are easy to suffer losses from high-price inventory.
3. Industrial capacity differentiation intensifies. Factories producing low-standard general cemented carbide products rely on raw material price difference to gain profits. They have no product bargaining power and will be eliminated first in market fluctuation. Primary tungsten cost is uncontrollable, linked closely with tungsten ore spot price.
4. Recycled tungsten shows obvious market advantages. Dated June 17, recycled tungsten rod price is 780 RMB/kg, and recycled tungsten drill bit price is 730 RMB/kg. Recycled tungsten has mild price fluctuation and lower cost, which can offset primary raw material risk. But most small enterprises lack mature purification and proportioning technology, so large-scale replacement of primary tungsten cannot be realized.
Practical Countermeasures for Downstream Enterprises
National strategic resource regulation will continue, and financial capital will not withdraw from tungsten trading. Frequent tungsten carbide price fluctuation will become normal. Downstream enterprises cannot change the game between policy and capital, but can adjust operation strategies to stabilize long-term development.
Upgrade quotation rules
Enterprises shall cancel long-term fixed quotation, and adopt 24-hour or 3-day valid quotation. Lock upstream raw material purchase price once receiving end orders. Give up speculative trading, and focus on stable processing profit only.
Optimize product capacity structure
Reduce output of low-value-added homogeneous tools and carbide blanks. Expand production of high-end CNC tools and customized precision parts. High-end products are less sensitive to tungsten carbide price change. Enterprises can transfer raw material cost pressure via technical product premium, and get rid of raw material price restraint.
Build recycled tungsten supply chain
Build internal waste tungsten recycling channel, and improve waste crushing, purification and proportioning technology. Increase the usage ratio of recycled tungsten carbide. Stable recycled tungsten cost can balance primary raw material purchase expenditure and weaken spot price impact.
Maintain reasonable inventory volume
Avoid blind bottom-hunting and trend-following stock-up. Adopt small-batch phased purchasing instead of large-scale inventory reserve to avoid capital speculation losses.
결론
Tungsten carbide is not only industrial manufacturing material, but also strategic commodity with dual industrial and financial attributes. The 2026 half-year price trend proves that unilateral sharp price rise or fall will not appear in the future. Capital arbitrage, policy regulation and supply-demand balance will interact constantly. For tungsten industrial enterprises, abandoning speculative mentality and improving core manufacturing technology is the reliable way to resist capital price fluctuation and realize sustainable operation.
